And then suddenly everyone got sick

Hopefully, this is a good sign - we still have time to get over it all before leaving.

Last Friday, my sister came down with a nasty stomach virus that put her hard down for the better part of three days.

Last Tuesday, my dad caught a cold that wiped out his ability to speak for a couple of days.

This morning, my daughter and husband were both exhibiting signs of having caught my sister's virus (without any contact with her at all, so it must be something going around).

I feel peculiarly light-headed at the moment, but not exactly sick, so I'm hoping I've dodged the bullet so far.

With luck, this means we're getting all this out of our systems prior to sailing. We've done the "sick while on a cruise" thing - bronchitis, not Norwalk, in case you were wondering - and it does cramp one's style. And I left on my first cruise with a fistful of antibiotics to help me get over the last lingering bits of the flu (and they handily allowed me to eat in Mexico without dwelling on the possible after-effects).

But since everyone's apparently so susceptible just now, I think that I will have to bring rather more intellectually challenging books with me, to keep my mind from thinking I'm on a vacation and finally have time to be sick. No bodice-rippers by the pool; I'll have to read Origin of Species or the general theory of relativity or something. Not like I haven't done that before: the book I chose to read by the pool on our last cruise was Charles Williams' Descent Into Hell. I hope no one read anything into that choice...