We blamed it on the chicken and avocado sandwiches we had eaten on the way. We were ill, you see. Desperately, ‘I think I’m dying’, sort of ill.
We had gone to England for a week to catch up with family, as many expats do.
After a couple of days of hugging our grandson, Ben, we had set off to drive from my side of the family, in the north-west, to the side of ‘she who must be obeyed’ in the south-east.
Along the way, we had stopped to refuel. We put petrol in the car and then decided to grab a sandwich.
As we motored across England in the weak, wintry sunshine, all seemed well. Little did we know that we were a ticking time bomb; a petri dish of microbes which were quietly, patiently lurking within us both.
When we arrived in Norfolk, the first signs began to be seen. ‘She who must be obeyed’ refused a piece of her mother’s cake, which is unheard of; she makes the most wonderful Victoria sponge.
I, of course, greedily accepted, but expressed mild concern that my wife hadn’t. ‘Still a bit full’, was the given explanation and we all settled down for a pleasant evening.
Within the next two hours, first ‘she who must be obeyed’ and then I, were victims of what we assumed was food poisoning.
To say we felt ill simply doesn’t come close. For the sake of propriety, I will not offer a blow-by-blow account, but will say that for the best part of two full days, nothing went in, but a lot managed to come out, as it were.
The two days we were with the ‘Norfolk lot’ was a complete waste of time. We saw no-one, did nothing, and then had to face the drive up north to get the plane back to Portugal.
It was a tense journey. Still feeling weak, slightly nauseous and nervously keeping an eye out for the next ‘comfort break’ made for a difficult four hours, but we were beginning to feel a little, just a little, better as we arrived in Cheshire.
As we walked up the path, the front door opened and my son peered out, ashen of face, unshaven and bleary.
It turned out that they too, had had food poisoning.
We began to go back over what we might have all eaten which could have produced such shocking symptoms.
The chicken and avocado sandwiches were clearly no longer to blame, but some waffles began to be seen as the guilty party.
Our grandson, Ben, seemed to have escaped and this lent credence to the idea that food poisoning was the culprit.
Then the text came from Norfolk. Now they were all ill, too.
The microscope of blame shifted now to some form of bug, of course and quicker than you can say ‘epidemiology’, we realised that we had fallen foul of the dreaded norovirus.
Somehow, we managed to make it to Manchester airport at 4am and catch the budget flight back to Porto.
Somewhere along the way, we had lost two days, though.
Mike Gaunt is a former headmaster at St Christopher’s School, Bahrain
– mikegaunt@gmail.com