NEWSFLASH – being ill is rubbish.

Like most generally healthy people I tend to get a couple of bad colds a year, taking no more than two or three weeks in total out of my routine.

But this year already seems to be different.

I spent most of the Christmas and New Year period suffering with a particularly nasty bug which put something of a damper on my celebrations.

However, as 2015 got underway I thought I’d beaten it.

Not so, it seems.

Last week it returned with a vengeance, this time with the added little treat of a throaty cough.

So once again I found myself guzzling endless mugs of Lemsip supplemented by cartons of orange juice, more Lucozade than is probably good for my teeth and fruit smoothies when I can work up the energy to shove some bananas in the blender.

While it is an excuse to spend all day curled up in bed demolishing multipacks of Hobnobs and watching every episode of The Young Ones again, this is small comfort when I spend most of the time convinced I’m going to die.

Never let it be said I’m not dramatic.

Rest assured the irony of being your Worcester News’ resident health reporter yet apparently not entirely healthy is not lost on me.

Of course this is made no easier by my oh so grown up decision that I’d be better off living on my own.

While I genuinely love the freedom of having a place which is entirely my own, not having flatmates or even – perish the thought – parents to bring me cups of tea, go to the shop for biscuits and give me the occasional sympathetic look, can be less than fun.

So I have no choice but to drag myself a whole 200 yards to the petrol station round the corner from my flat. I sometimes wonder if the staff there think I eat nothing but biscuits and orange-flavoured energy drinks.

Woe is me.

So all in all this isn’t a great start to 2015. So far I’ve spent more of the year feeling ill than I have feeling well.

On the optimistic side maybe I’m getting this year’s set of colds out of the way early. In the meantime if anyone wants to pop over to make me a cup of tea that would be most welcome.