Who did this?

I used to know someone whose elderly mother, in mild winters, would intone balefully: "Green winter, full churchyard....". Mild winters were dangerous. For the past two weeks, I've been saying cheerfully that cold weather helps kill off germs ('germs' in this instance being a handy generic term for anything that makes you sick) and aphids, and that we shouldn't complain about it. I've said this cheerfully to Sandra, who has a perpetual cold and a horrible cough, is deaf as a post and as loud as a foghorn, and who is clearly impervious to the cleansing effects of sub-zero temperatures.

And suddenly this evening, at the lightning speed of a winter-hardened germ, I have developed a streaming, sneezy cold. I have a pathological hatred of having a cold. Cue tissues, stuff to spray up my nose, paracetamol, hot water with lemon and honey, and an early night. And lashings of self-pity; that's essential. I may even groan softly in between sneezes and vigorous honking into a hanky.

I blame Sandra, of course, as she's the obvious likely passer-on of the loathsome germ, but it could have been anyone in the supermarket today, where she and I walked, or the change given by the milkman, whom I paid tonight. Or just a germ floating about waiting for an unsuspecting victim who hasn't had a cold for ages and was beginning to get smug about it.

But I need to blame someone for passing on that germ. It's part of the tradition of having a cold, an unreasonable resentment towards  a probably-innocent person. (Don't tut - you know you do this too!)

Sniffle.... honk.... aaaaaCHOO!.... poor, poor Me.... you've no idea how I suffer.... night-night.