It seems that he had a bit of a runny nose early last week, more late Wed. and on Thursday, during which he dug some carrots ansd onions and spread them out on the concrete pad by the barn to dry. The coughing started late Thursday.

His favourite means of battling a cold is to spend a lot of time in bed (rather a different path for him), and he went to bed before ten that night.

Getting up about noon on Friday, he took his diuretic pill, waited the required hour, had some brekkie ... and found it difficult to dig up enough energy/enthusiasm to go pick up the veggies to put them into trays and into the barn, to avoid having them freeze ... but did get it done. Quite a bit of coughing on Friday ... but the runnyness of the nose had substantially reduced.

Son and friend had asked early in the week whether he'd drive them to a Santa Claus parade (in Hamilton, 80 miles away) on Saturday afternoon and he'd phoned son on Thursday evening to give him a head's up with regard to the difficulty of the cold.

On Friday it looked as though the prospects for the trip were rather iffy ... but by Friday evening he said that he was feeling enough better that he felt that he might/would probably feel like going. There was some less coughing. The boys assured him that he should stay at home if he wasn't feeling well.

On Saturday, there was not much runny nose (though he thought it wise to carry a good supply of tissues), and though there was less coughing, by this time, it hurt at the diaphragm when he did.

Part of the concern was whether he was still contagious ... but they thought not.

He felt in reasonable condition during the day, and in late afternoon, when there was some discussion of going beyond Toronto to an evening parade, he felt up to it, but the boys decided to call it a day.

In the light of his problem in late September with the blood clot in the lung, he wondered whether he'd have trouble with difficulties in the lung, and it didn't seem so.

Also, we wondered whether his resistance might be lower and the cold would drag on for some time, but was thankful when he was able to encourage it to pack it in after a short space of time.

So ... ole joyful was thankful that he was able to get through the cold with as little scathing as turned out.

ole joyful's alter ego