LIZ JONES’S DIARY: In which I find yourself in hospital with the ‘kissing illness’ after numerous snogging with the German…

I’ve decided to concentrate on finishing the renovation of the vicarage. I have a new kitchen, and this week the en suite for the top floor bedroom is finally installed; planning permission has taken months.

I am so excited about having girlfriends to stay that I’ve gone a bit mad. I’ve installed a mini fridge, so it’s like a hotel, bought Aesop products, candles.

I’ve bought bed linen from Ikea: did you know a single Oxford cotton pillowcase is £2.50? How did I not know this? I think having a friend to stay is so much more enjoyable than a man. They notice everything without being prompted: ‘Did you see the incredible skylight? The stone staircase? The chandelier?’ Men never seem to look up. Or get the giggles.

But I have been floored this week by illness. I have tonsillitis, again, just a few weeks after my last bout. Oh dear god, I’ve just googled sore throat after sex. Never mind my other symptoms (I’m too embarrassed to list them here), I might have oral chlamydia. I’m getting tested tomorrow. 

On my last visit, the GP was quite negative, I thought. ‘As you get older, you are more prone to viruses. Have you had a shingles jab?’ God knows what she will think now, when I turn up in stained tracksuit bottoms, mad hair (I’ve been unable to wash, or even sip water, my throat is so painful), and tell her how much unprotected sex I have been having.

She will think I have psychiatric problems, Walter Mitty syndrome. It’s like when I see a woman the size of a bungalow in Tesco, pushing a small baby in a trolley, and I think, unkindly, ‘How did you ever have sex?’ I’ll be offered counselling, not antibiotics. I’m awaiting the results.

But, oh dear, I am much sicker than I thought. I am now writing this from my hospital bed inside Darlington Memorial. It’s a first, I suppose, to be filing copy while hospitalised, though I’ve filed from a few strange places: a hammock halfway up Everest, Ian Fleming’s Jamaican villa, backs of taxis during fashion weeks, a service station on the M1 (that was when Thatcher died). 

The GP was so shocked that I had not eaten for five days and could no longer swallow water that he referred me straight away. Nic drove me. Of course, the car parks were full.

Eventually, we made it inside. The ENT surgeon who looked in my mouth was impressed by the size of my left tonsil. My whole face is now swollen; it’s as though I’ve had filler. He took blood samples (‘That’s nearly a whole armful!’ A room of blank stares. Why does no one remember Tony Hancock?), gave me steroids, intravenous antibiotics and I am now on a fluid and painkiller drip for a couple of hours to see if the swelling and pain abate. 

I will never disparage the work of doctors and nurses again.

The surgeon came back with the results. ‘It’s glandular fever. The kissing disease. No wonder you have been so ill since you met the German.’ Turns out even surgeons need light relief reading newspaper columns. 

Glandular fever is most common in teenagers who do a lot of snogging. It is spread through saliva, and sperm. We did do a lot of snogging. He has a very strong tongue. I haven’t been near another single soul. I spend every day alone, writing. When I look after the horses, I’m on my own.

I’m waiting for the drip to finish, and the surgeon to let me know if he wants me to stay in overnight. So, this is where I end up. Not married to a handsome man, living part-time by the Thames. But in a narrow hospital cot, needles in my arm, only the drip stand to keep me company.

JONES MOANS… WHAT LIZ LOATHES THIS WEEK

• Hospital car parks. Why are they always full?
• People who say, ‘It’s my forever home.’ It’s not, is it? No one lives forever, despite what Liam Gallagher might sing.
• And why is it that when you open a packet of tablets, you always get the folded leaflet end?

Contact Liz at lizjonesgoddess.com and find her @lizjonesgoddess