I think we need to buy Amelie a laser pointer...


It's not really ideal to have to stand on a stool and use a hairbrush every time you want to point out where you are in the photo.

Anyhoo, as the picture above demonstrates, there are definite advantages to working just along the corridor from the hospital's senior graphic designer and her giant poster printer. Admittedly, the NHS budget for 2009 probably wasn't intended to cover freebies for me and Lisa, but let's face it, if I hadn't been given a copy, I'd only have stolen one from the children's hospital. So they'd have paid for it one way or another. In fact I've saved the NHS money, because this particular edition was printed without the expensive new super-coating they now give to all hospital posters to bring out the contrast and produce vibrant colours. And that's where your taxes are really going.

Ironically, within hours of receiving our very own infection control poster, Lisa, Amelie and I seem to have gone down with a mystery illness. To be honest, mine's no mystery. I've been developing the symptoms of a cold since I walked through the rain with a frozen lasagne on Saturday. Having been vaccinated against seasonal flu, swine flu and hepatitis B in the past fortnight, a cold's just about the only thing I can still get. But as for Lisa and Amelie, they haven't been quite right for the past twenty-four hours. Lisa's been failing faint (possibly because she's living on eighteen Weight Watchers points a day) and Amelie was up half the night, howling at the moon. Neither of them seem to be causing their usual mayhem...


I had to crop Lisa's face out of that photo for legal reasons, but trust me, she's looking pale.