I BEGAN writing this from my sickbed, or rather my sick chair, because I had at the time progressed into a slightly more upright position.

It comes as a considerable shock to someone who hasn't had more than a day or so in bed with any kind of illness for at least 25 years to suddenly find herself struck down by the mother of all stomach bugs.

I've never really been able to enjoy being ill, although I'm not suggesting that there could be anything enjoyable in harbouring such a bug. No, it's just that I have an inbuilt sense of guilt owing to the fact that I was brought up under a regime which basically ruled that there were two states of being. A. Hale and Hearty. B. At death's door. Unless you had reached the latter you were not expected to take to your bed.

Nevertheless, in bed I was, and not alone.

Now anyone who owns cats will know that they instinctively sense changes in their chosen household and someone in bed during the day is a noticeable change.

Now anyone who owns cats and is a trifle less cynical than I am may say that dear little pussies will sense that their presence in the sick chamber will be a comfort.

My feelings are that the dear little pussies were only too delighted to be able to get into a room they are normally not allowed in during the day and furthermore their instincts told them that the person lying in the bed was far too weak to throw anything like a well aimed slipper at them if they chose to scratch the hell out of her bedroom chair legs.

Their ministrations on my behalf included drinking my water, licking my small piece of buttered toast and constantly knocking everything off the bedside table.

They also enjoyed a game of 'chasing up and down the mountain' with me as the mountain and the grey one took to crawling into the duvet cover so that I would suddenly find I was attached to a writhing sausage of material when he discovered he couldn't get out. The worst thing they did was on the second day when I awoke from a feverish sleep at dusk and suddenly noticed what appeared to be two disembodied heads with shining eyes peering out of my chest of drawers. It only took me a moment to re-focus on a ginger face and a grey face, each in its own cosy little underwear drawer, but it was a scary moment.

One thing I have discovered is that almost everyone has a remedy when it comes to some of the side effects of a stomach bug.

Suddenly your lower bowels become a public debating field. According to one person I needed hard boiled eggs to bind me up. To another stewed fruit for a good clean-out (rather coals to Newcastle this one). Someone suggested blancmange.

My daughter's father-in-law said he always swore by ship's biscuits (he's ex-Royal Navy) because they always worked on sea-sickness so should have a similar effect at the reverse end (seaman's logic?) Unfortunately he couldn't name a local supplier but said dog biscuits were similar. I said thanks, but no thanks. Winalot's not for me.

Being ill was bad enough, being bored to death was even worse. I ran out of books and got desperate enough to read the Argos catalogue.

The television offered very little. Have you ever watched daytime television? Ghastly cookery programmes one of which actually showed someone making baked bean soup which looked remarkably similar to what I assumed was going on in my stomach.

Terrible talk shows with people who can't get round to discussing their problems at home but are quite happy to trot them out in front of thousands of viewers.

People sitting on sofas you want to punch (the people not the sofas). Terrible old films which were rubbish when they were new.

Even the Olympics were tedious eventually. I actually found myself counting the women who had hair under their arms during the swimming I was that bored. I fell asleep during the closing ceremony and woke up hours later to find it was still on.

Even worse, I found myself getting just a little bit hooked on a hitherto unseen daytime soap-opera and eagerly looking forward to more medical goings-on. So it's just as well I'm back to work.

Sorry about the long and tedious personal diatribe this week - but I thought I'd share just a little of the boredom.