alex_beecroft

When I get ill, I have a tendency towards melodrama. The truth is that I have a tendency towards melodrama at all times, but when I’m ill it manifests itself in the purest form – in weeping and loud declarations that I can’t bear it any more and I want to die. My life is over, I will never again be well enough to achieve anything. I might as well just give up now and allow myself to gorge on chocolate and sleep.

The sleep part is problematic because long periods of having no time alone (such as weeks in which at least one member of my family is at home all day long because of illness) give me stress, and stress gives me insomnia. So I spent a large part of last night on the sofa unable to sleep because of the ticking of the clock, while unable to sleep in my bed because my husband was breathing. How unreasonable is that?!

The chocolate part is problematic because I’ve been on a low fat diet for over a year, and I know that if I once let it slip I could pile the three stone lost back on in as many weeks. I’m only at the ‘I resent the fact that I can’t have chocolate’ stage as yet. I’ll have to be much more wrecked before I actually give in and eat.

So my righteous misery has been gathering speed for so long, deprived of my normal sources of comfort, that I was quite unprepared for it to be interrupted by cover art. But lo! Cover art I have, and it is good

In fact I think it may be my favourite cover art ever. The guy looks like Chris! The stone circle is stone-circley! The Lancaster is a Lancaster! And the over-all colour scheme is lovely. I like the text, I like having a single character rather than a pair on there. I like the fact that he’s got clothes on – I like everything

I was quite on course for a well deserved tantrum today, but now I think I’ll just look at my cover art again and chill. Life is possibly worth living after all.