I SUPPOSE it serves me right for mocking someone who had apparently chucked a sickie to go to the Ashes test last week.

Or maybe the Good Lord just has a funny sense of humour.

Whatever the reason, the ink was not yet dry on last Wednesday's paper when I started to feel that telltale tickle on the roof of my mouth. The kind of tickle that means a head cold is on its way whether I like it or not.

I am never ill - well, hardly ever. I must get a bit poorly sometimes, otherwise I wouldn't know what a head cold feels like, but I can't remember the last time I took a day off sick.

Don't get me wrong. I count myself lucky to enjoy good health, and I can't imagine how awful it must be to face a serious ailment.

But who among us has not sometimes cast an envious glance at the empty chair of a colleague who's rung in sick with a minor, finite illness?

This kind of jealousy usually strikes when there's a tricky work day ahead for whatever reason.

As you ready yourself mentally for the hard slog ahead, you start to mull resentfully over the kind of day your workmate has lined up.

You imagine them lounging luxuriously beneath a duvet with a legitimate excuse to watch Trisha, stroke the cat and eat an entire pack of McVitie's milk chocolate digestives without guilt. You brood about them only having to raise a feeble cry of "Darling..." before their solicitous spouse runs upstairs eager to mop their fevered brow, plump their pillows and generally wait on them hand and foot.

In fact, they're actually lying pale, shivering and sweating, and they couldn't face a choccy biccy even if there were any in the house.

There's most likely no medicine in the house either, but they're feeling too grim to crawl around to the corner shop for a packet of Sudafed and some Lockets.

As for the solicitous spouse... they probably started the day complaining bitterly about the patient having tossed and turned all night long.

Then they most likely sprinted from Emergency Room Ten to the relative peace and quiet of their office, pausing only to shout over their shoulder: "Look after yourself, love - I won't kiss you, if that's all right."

Nevertheless, you envy your sick colleagues until the day arrives when it's your turn to feel crocked, and suddenly you remember just how vile the sensation is.

And if you fall ill as the weekend beckons, it is salt in the gaping wound.

When you're well you forget that when you're ill, you can't sleep, because you can't breathe.

It's boring enough when you feel too pathetic to do anything because of your cold, but when you're lying awake at night sucking Strepsils and sticking a Vicks Sinex inhaler up your left nostril, the hours do not exactly fly by.

Come Monday morning you're thinking about ringing in, but you know that if you do, you'll have started to feel better the second you put the phone down.

Then you'll spend the whole day feeling a fraud and thinking about the in-tray that will not magically have emptied itself by the time you get back to the office.

No, it's best to get yourself in to work. It's less boring, and there's always the thrill of playing Russian roulette with your germs.

Someone else is sure to fall ill, and you can spend the day resenting them for taking the day off sick.

Updated: 09:00 Wednesday, August 24, 2005