In full voice at H&B

I’ve got the lurgy this week - the snivelling, snuffling, spluttering lurgy. So of course the convenience issue when it comes to shopping has reared its head again.

The thing is, in many ways there’s nothing more miserable that a cold. After all, it’s only a cold, so you’re pretty much expected to pull yourself together and go about your daily business as usual, despite the fact that you actually feel like there’s a gang of Furbies holding a cuddle party in your inner ear canal, and you actually want to be lying on a sofa, whimpering softly to yourself and watching the entire six-hour BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice on DVD (the one where a young Colin Firth emerges manfully from a lake in a wet white shirt).

Chances are you also look like death warmed up. I find it absolutely impossible to be aesthetically-pleasing when I’ve a cold. Some women manage to do that Julia Roberts, doe-eyed thing, but I just look like a nasty, oozing corpse with sallow skin, a red nose and zombie eyes. I looked in the mirror this morning to put some make-up on and pretty much decided it was a lost cause.

So on my lunch break at work, what I really wanted to do was crawl out into my nice warm car, drive myself to Morrisons and pick up some Lemsip, using those self-service tills so I didn’t have to inflict myself on any other human beings.

But of course, I’m not allowed. So what I actually had to do was wrap myself up, take myself out into the chilly, damp air and shuffle along the 10 minute walk from the Derby Telegraph offices to the city centre shops.

The whole thing was very traumatic. I nearly slipped over in a patch of mud, nearly got run over by a bus because my brain failed to function properly at a pedestrian crossing, and made a group of skater boys visibly gag at my grotesque appearance as I staggered past them.

My destination was Holland and Barrett. I know it’s a chain but I really like H&B - I actually feel positively healthier as soon as I walk through the door. At the branch in Derby’s Westfield Centre the staff are super-friendly with a great sense of humour (No doubt a requirement of the job; I bet they field some really bizarre questions!) and there’s usually some free samples of something - today it was ginger beer which is coincidentally really good for you when you’ve got the lurgy.

After Saturday’s successful but perhaps a little ambitious shopping trip to Chesterfield, my new game plan is to try to pick up a few bits most days in my bid to avoid the supermarkets, rather than over-facing myself with a huge list.

Today my shopping list consisted of veggie sausages, soya milk and honey, all of which I usually get from Tesco. But after a quick think I realised I could pick them all up from H&B instead while at the same time grabbing some kind of hippy cold and flu remedy. Result!

And then I got an even bigger result when I went to the till to pay.

You see, I’d woken up to find I’d completely lost my voice so I’d spent the whole morning at work hissing at the reporters, mouthing at the editor and doing the kind of comedy miming usually reserved for a drunken game of Charades.

But after a 10 minute walk in a bit of bracing fresh air and a menthol sweet (picked up from a market stall along the way) my vocal chords decided to make a surprise return to life as I was being handed my receipt.

"THANK YOU" I boomed in my best baritone, several octaves lower than my usual voice, shocking the shop assistant who had clearly had me pegged for a shrinking violent because I’d not uttered a single word to her throughout my entire transaction.

We goggled at each other and a lady behind me in the queue sniggered.

"I’ve got a cold," I squeaked in explanation, my voice pitching up towards the dizzy heights of range usually reserved for choirboys.

We smiled awkwardly and then I hurried from the shop feeling like a pubescent teen whose balls had just dropped.

But the moral of this slightly odd story is clear. If you want to help yourself feel better you have to get out into the world, take the air, see the sights and meet new people, and what better way to do all that than my supermarket-avoiding resolution.

Also, as research suggests that more and more office workers are skipping their lunch breaks, having a short list of a few bits you need to go out and pick up is a good motivator to get away from your desk for half an hour, stretch your legs and take a mental break.

I’ll be trotting out again later this week to hunt down scourers and kitchen roll, hopefully without terrifying any more shop assistants into the bargain.

(DISCLAIMER: There are no pics to go with this entry because I was feeling too feeble to take any.)