a hidden slave

There are times in life when you just need to pull the quilt over your head, keep yourself company and just remember to breathe in and out at a fairly regular pace. And that is where I have been, under my metaphorical quilt.
It is so long since I read another blog, it seems so strange to start again, I am reluctant to do it. I feel like I have snuck into a bedroom and felt under the mattress for a diary and am now holding one in my hand, deciding if it is good to open it...

Christmas is nearly upon us, I have just a few hours left before it is Christmas day. My family are here, we are together, we are safe, well and looking forward to tomorrow.
We will get up early no doubt, well before the sunrise at 6am, eat copious amounts of chocolate, open presents, go for a lovely swim at the beach, come home and have lunch and enjoy our new gifts and each others company....

I hadn't realised how much time had gone by since I last posted. So much has happened. I have been sick. Not the usual type of sick when you have a cold or something like that, hazards of the location I guess.
I had not been feeling well for a few days, unable to function at all well, tired, headache, aching bones, thought I was coming down with flu, then the fever got higher and higher and higher, until it hit 40C, and I felt worse and worse and worse......