Poor me

I was up all night with raging earache.

Or, if you prefer, I was awake part of the night with quite bad earache. Whatever, I didn't want to spend all of Bank Holiday in pain so I phoned the out-of-hours GP service this morning.

In order to assess how bad I was, a nurse grilled me, and some of the questions she asked me were these.

Can you hear normally? (As long as I tug on my left earlobe.)

Are you confused? (No more than usual.)

Are you feeling unusually hot? (I am a woman of a certain age; how am I supposed to know what is unusually hot.)

I must have convinced her that I was in need of care because I've now seen a doctor and I have a spray - combined steroid, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial apparently - what it doesn't kill it makes very strong. However if my ear becomes more swollen, I will need to have a wick inserted. I feel like the man to whom Sir Walter Raleigh explained tobacco. 'So, you roll it up then you set fire to it, is that what you're saying, Walt?'