I dropped a morphine capsule in my Moscow Mule

A dear friend came to stay for two nights. Could I be persuaded, wondered he and Catriona, on the first morning, to venture out to a restaurant for lunch?

Descending the stairs to welcome guests these days takes a bit of effort. Bare feet, boney ankles, flapping pyjama bottoms; the guests look up in fascinated horror as the anchorite wobbles down the creaking wooden steps attended by importunate flies with his revelry face on. They have even stopped insisting how well I look. I might last an hour in an armchair in the sitting room, refusing alcohol, before exercising an ague’s privilege, excusing myself, and returning to the horizontal upstairs. Since my last trip to Marseille in the taxi three weeks ago for treatment, the farthest I’ve been is to the composting bin to scrape in leftovers and usually contemplate for a moment the insatiable forces of putrefaction. 

But my friend is a wonderful man who had driven 14 hours in spray from Yorkshire to come and cheer me up.