There he is, looks a bit pissed off I'd say.
Rabelais was the mainstay of Renaissance French Literature as taught by the University of London. Montaigne was there to hold him up a bit and a bunch of quite interesting poets, Joachim du Bellay, Aggripa D'Aubigné, yep, enough, either writers you already love, or just a meaningless list.
Rabelais, however, taught me a wealth of interesting scatological expressions, entirely useless of course, there's not much call for bantering in Renaissance French. This afternoon however, I was reminded of the English equivalent of one such.
Yesterday I crowed - please pardon the pun - about my energy and general recovery. No change to that state of affairs this morning, nor during the puppet show this afternoon, nor until about halfway round the trail.
And then.... And then.... and I'm sure everyone will recognise and dread this. Suddenly I felt a wave of faintness, I thought I was going to black out. I sat down on the bench. I told the kids that this was the bench they shouldn't sit on because there were ants on it, the big ones, the biters. Then I felt a tidal wave of nausea.
I had to sit on the forest floor, I needed to be as low to the ground as possible. The same kids who see anacondas and crocodiles in the park just thought I was investigating some interesting bug as I barfed into the Salal bushes.
I called the teacher over and asked her to catch up with Rob's group, which she did, calmly, Rob continued the walk with both groups and the teacher took me back to the Nature House, where, in true Rabelaisian form, my fundament fell out, and out and out and out and out. I could now no longer get off the floor.
Kevin had to be summoned from work to take me home, the alternative that I was being threatened with was an ambulance, Kris was so worried. So Kevin collected my things from various corners of the Nature House, supported me while I walked barefoot to the car, I had to lie in the back clutching a bucket, got me up the stairs then made me comfortable on the bathroom floor. I will leave the details out, but believe you me, he deserves a medal.
Then at around 17.30, suddenly, I could raise my head again. Now I am bathed and sitting in bed. I can't say I'm full of beans again, hell, I'm not full of anything at the moment, not even, for those of you who think I'm always full of shit, that.
I wonder if I can blame Canadian Karen? Hmmm.. she did have that awful bug she brought back from the Dominican Republic and I did sit next to her at Dashers' last night.
I'm just kidding Karen. It's just....since my other illness, I haven't eaten very much, so it's hard to put it down to something I ate. And I ALWAYS wash my hands after handling the snakes.
Beats me. Glad I'm not lying on the bathroom floor anymore though.
Nothing new under the sun
3 years ago
8 comments:
how awful. TAKE THE DAY OFF TOMORROW. I beg of you.
Mine's more like diarrhea now, not so much vomitting,, but yes, I do believe I saw a Dominican thing jump over to you.
eeek.
karen
Well, it did remind me of something else you said Karen and today more than any other, I was very grateful I don't live alone.
Yikes. Get well soon. Who knows where those kids or Karen might have been? Hope the snakes will be okay.
Thanks Raymond, it was a shock I must say, very sudden and ferocious.
Be well, O Great One!
A lovely post, as always. Rabelais was truly a great. I love Bakhtin's work on him.
I feel unwell but mine is totally self inflicted.
The Uncle drank a bottle of Jameson and I tucked into the Stolly, we put the world to rights and went to bed at 4am...
Eeeeesh...
Lenten - Thank you and I do feel much better this morning. Our text of choice (the lecturers choice natch) was MA Screech.
Sleepy - It always ends badly when you try to match the Irish rellies with drinking.
Mate, it's Brutal.
An all day-er one.
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