“Just two more sleeps till Christmas,” says the little girl to her mum in Boots.

I wish. If I seriously thought I could have even one full night’s kip between now and the 25th I’d be laughing, if not ho-ho-ho-ing, but the way things are going it looks like The Big Sleep and I are going to remain strangers for a while yet.

The last week has been one round of activity after another – as in ward round, that is. My husband’s fallen foul of a particularly foul type of cold – and even I, who believes that men exaggerate their symptoms by a magnitude of ten – have to admit that even the cleverest bloke can’t really fake chesty coughs and night sweats.

The trouble is, if you’re lying next to the hacking patient, you get a bit too much information. Dropping off becomes an aspiration, rather than a realisitic objective, because every time you relax the silence is broken with a sneeze or the vibration of two lungs trying to shake a virus into submission. So you start using the time to write Christmas food shopping lists in your head.

Then it’s time to get his Lemsip and more tissues, and while the kettle’s boiling it seems an opportunity missed if you don’t pack a couple of stocking fillers.

By the time you return to his bedside and dose him up, you’re so wide awake and tired at the same time you could climb the walls, if only you had the energy.

Even standing in the queue for the pharmacist, I can’t help running through all the jobs I’ve got left to do before Christmas morning.

Collect the turkey from a farm an hour’s drive away, because I forgot to order a free range one from the supermarket down the road. Ring round all the garden centres, because I left it too late to get a tree from Homebase or B&Q.

Decorate the tree. Stuff the turkey. Or do I just stuff the tree? It’s only me and the cats in our house who ever seem to show any interest in it anyway, and theirs is a rather destructive one.

There’s only one person in front of me now. The chemist’s door opens and the cold wind whips in, making me shiver. This is supposed to be the season to be merry, I think, but this year the run-up to Christmas feels more like an obstacle course, with unwritten Christmas cards and unwrapped presents and unmade food looming menacingly on the horizon The pharmacist takes payment for a bottle of head-lice lotion and then smiles at me.

I open my mouth to explain that I need something to make my husband quieter at night, though I’m not sure what I’m expecting her to come up with. Strychnine? A dummy?

But nothing happens. My voice isn’t working properly. I’ve got what he’s got.

I smile back. Thank heavens for that. I mentally cross all the jobs off my list and settle for a couple of days in bed.