Sick!
Nothing like spending five days on a couch. I do pages for holidays of this length, so I thought why not share a different experience of the same time.
London has many things going for it, a healthy lifestyle is not one of them. You work more, get less sunshine, and eat lower quality food. Then there are both the greater exposure to more people (nad germs), and the fact that most New Zealanders coming to the northern hemisphere get exposed to a completely different set of germs (or at their local mutations). Just about every kiwi I know has had at least 6 months of poor health, often after this time they seem to acclimitise, and things improve somewhat.
This latest bug hit me on a Friday, and even though I dragged my carcass to work on the
following Wednesday, I didn't totally shake it off till almost two weeks after that.
The most worrying sympton was the "Phelgm vomitting". 
This seemed to occour
from post-nasal drip collecting in my throat and stomach, it was extremely viscous stuff,
and after a period of time (generally every 6 hours, and after I ate anything) it would
irratate my throat enough to invoke a gag-reflex, leading to a good vomit. Apart
from the mucus/phelgm content, it would also include a good dose of bile, and some
partially digested portion of my last meal - being mainly on liquids, this wasnt too
nausiating in itself. Other symptoms were the old running nose, high temperature,
sweating, headache (I rarely get headaches, so it must normally be real bad for me to get
a mild one), lethargy and diziness. The Doc's said to "tough it out" -
real useful, but I didn't expect much more. I only saw them because I was concerned
that it might actually be something unusual. They said that it may be
different from the normal types of cold I get because London (climate, pollution, etc)
provokes a different response in my body's defense mechanisims.
Because I could barely sleep, I spent a lot of time on the sofa 
, mainly because it was a good place to
be pathetic from, but I also slept there so as not to disturb Tricia with my restlessness
and panic-attacks (from waking unable to breathe with a swollen throat packed with mucus),
she said the vomitting was "distracting" too... So there I sat surrounded
by drugs 
, my vomit bucket, and my
used-tissue bin. I generally couldn't concentrate enough to read, while watching TV
or videos was difficult as my attention span was shorter than a 8-year-old on Jolt and
Artifical Colouring #257. I could take some consolation in my Playstation, but it
was kinda hard to get satisfaction when you have to keep blowing your nose every two
minutes.
There has rarely been a
less productive time in my life as those five days. The only joy the NHS has ever
provided was the amusing thought of some lab technition examining my sputum sample, and
checking the secretions from my body against what the doc's said was normal. I do
NOT recommend getting sick.
