I've had this flu bug thingy and though the goose may be getting fat I think I've lost a few ounces. At one stage I just lay on the bed sweating buckets and thinking more about how to get to the shop than I did about getting home from Ibiza.

Actually the worst time came when I managed to make it in the car to go for some liquorice papers and the awful Daily Mail and then couldn't get out of the car. One of my neighbours, who is a churchwarden, came out of her house on this Victorian terrace where I live and I just sort of waved feebly. Quite why she thought I was sitting there doing nothing must have bemused her, but I couldn't summon up the energy to open the car door.

It's awful, but also awfully pleasant feeling like this, because nothing really matters. I knew I had my dear readers all over the world waiting to hear from me, but you could all sod off as I just perspired as though I had run from San Antonio to Ibiza town and up and down the Galt Villa, or whatever it's called.

What might have helped was a drink or three and then again I suppose that wouldn't have helped, because it wouldn't have stopped there. Every ten minutes, once I was back inside the house, I had to go and lie down and I remembered someone telling me that when you are on a plane the air is recycled, so you catch whatever someone at the back has already got. All I can say is that I hope they caught whatever I already had; though I don't think I contributed very much.

Christmas in Ibiza is suddenly sounding very appealing to me as I look at the pile of unwashed pots here. Mind you, I did get home with the liquorice papers.

They've blighted many parts of my life because people see me rolling cigarettes and just assume I'm on drugs which is not as acceptable here in Haughton Green as it is in the Balearics, though I see Tony Blair has decided that to sort of decriminalise cannabis will stop people (i.e., voters) from complaining about what's going on in Afghanistan.

They all roll cigarettes there, though in a peculiar shape, like fireworks I remember as a child, starting out pointed and getting fat towards the end and the word "vesuvias" comes to mind for some reason. It's time to look in that big dictionary again. OK, I see it's to do with a volcano on the bay of Naples in Italy which went off in 1643, though quite why Vesuvian fireworks should have been a big thing in my childhood is a bit like wondering why I have a penchant for Bury black puddings which are rather like buttifarra sausages in Ibiza.

I'm hoping that today I'll be feeling a bit better and I can start organising things for Christmas. Cards are already arriving and now I have to start deciding on which relatives I'll have to visit, never mind which continent.

Sinclair Newton

sinclairnewton@ibizahistoryculture.com