After seven years of nonsense, I've finally stumbled my way to my 2,000th blog post. The "quite staggering inanity" (Western Mail, 30/10/06) of Mulled Whines now runs to more than 700,000 words. You wouldn't believe how long that takes to open in Microsoft Word. I thought my computer had crashed. Anyhoo, I've essentially written seven novels, but without being paid. Which is the only thing that separates me from JK Rowling.

Obviously I'd love to have something earth-shattering to write about on such a momentous occasion, but as luck would have it, both Lisa and I have gone down with a mystery illness today. In fact, I'm typing this to the sound of Lisa throwing up in a bucket. If I didn't feel so rough myself, I'd be filming it and posting it on YouTube.

As it happens, we were both fine first thing this morning, but as Lisa began to bring up her breakfast to the Jeremy Kyle theme tune, I was seeing my first patient on the other side of town, and starting to feel ill myself. By mid-morning I had a splitting headache, and by lunchtime I was too nauseous to eat. I know, I couldn't believe it either. Frankly the only thing that got me through the day was the fact that the clinic where I was working has its own pharmacy. I've spent most of today's wages on industrial strength painkillers and anti-queasiness pills.

Needless to say, neither of us are in a fit state to look after Amelie, so if things don't improve soon, she'll be applying her own calamine lotion. Of course, it's possible she's given us both shingles, but as this blog hits the two thousand mark, there's probably a more likely explanation...


I think it's the millennium bug.