Preventive Medicine

I have been unable to do any serious gluten freedom-fighting this week as my attention has been focused on Sir, who has come down with a virulent case of summer flu. Unable to think, go to work, or attend to yard responsibilities, he has been lying on the sofa for the last two days whimpering, playing Angry Birds, and nibbling on home-made Wensleydale (now aged and awesome!) with fig jam, the only food he seems able to digest at present.

Poor lamb!

Although the exact causes of Sir's condition are medical mysteries, I have two theories:

1. He is pining for the Kid Squid, at present incommunicado as he gallivants around Venice (the one in Italy) with his favorite aunt. Their home-away-from-home in La Serenissima is apparently without Wi-Fi, causing a vexing news blackout and prompting our imaginations to run amok.
2. He has lost the will to live after hearing the results of the Iowa Straw Poll. It might be a coincidence, but as I recall he took to his bed shortly after the news broke, crying 'We're all doomed!' to nobody in particular. It is but a short hop-skip-and-a-jump from political despair to general malaise, and although I'm sure Sir will rally in due course, I am becoming increasingly concerned about the turn his health might take once the presidential campaigning gets into full swing.

As a result of Sir's malingering - sorry, I mean recuperation, of course - I have been forced to do double duty with the lawnmower and had to pick up plums from the lawn twice this week, braving buzzing swarms of irate black wasps in the process. Even wielding my longest pair of grilling tongs and wearing my stoutest rubber gloves I was taking my life in my hands, I kid you not, as I fought the insects for every last piece of fermenting stone fruit.

Since Sir requested only 'a small bowl of lobster bisque for dinner, please' I was on my own for the evening meal. It was the work of only a moment to decide what I needed: something cheering after my long hours of drudgery on the estate; something cool and refreshing (ditto); and something with body-bolstering and flu-fighting properties, should Sir's germ's decide to migrate in my direction.

The answer? A heroic bowl of vanilla ice-cream (not home-made, but you can't have everything) with warmed almond-scented fresh berry compote and Original Cool Whip (now richer and creamier! contains milk!).

I am unabashed and make no apologies.

It is, after all, pure therapy.