I took to my bed on Monday night after an evening of shivering. All my joints ached and I could hardly move. The slow climb to bed confirmed the wisdom of our decision to move to a bungalow. I stayed there most of Tuesday, only rising in mid afternoon, and a lot of Wednesday, rising at noon. Gradually I began to feel better, and mobile. By Wednesday Julia was able to pronounce my colour to be “better”.. By this she means “less corpse-like” as I have a habit of turning grey when I am ill, and my natural disinclination toward rapid movement becomes more pronounced. At best I appear to be a grumpy zombie, and at worst I have found myself prodded violently awake “just in case”.

I’m not sure what it was, or what caused it, but I think cold, lack of sleep and hours sitting immobile in the car all contributed. OK, and old age. And my immunosuppressants. I always blame them these days.

I managed a few taps on the keyboard yesterday, but didn’t do much. Today I feel a bit more enthused, but still not overly motivated. I have also lost my appetite and reduced my calorie intake despite Julia’s efforts to a feed me back to health.

That’s about all there is to report, apart from feeling like Rip van Winkle. I went to bed in a world where politics seemed dull and ugly, and woke in one where politics appears to have run down a rabbit hole and returned with an unsubtle double act where a megalomaniac billionaire is bankrolling Mr Teflon, the man to whom nothing can stick. At the moment I am puzzled rather than worried, but I imagine that will change in the next few months.