Well, Big Sis's visit yesterday evening was a complete success. She was late leaving my parents', got stuck in traffic, then lost in Brighton, and eventually arrived 90 minutes later than planned. At which point she spent five minutes trying to get into a parking space. Which is what happens when you let the hire car company give you a people carrier instead of an automatic. But from there on in, things could only get better, and sure enough, Sis hobbled into my flat complaining that her foot hurt from using the clutch, ate a piece of Christmas cake, and within two hours was lying on my sofa with a temperature of 102.

But on the bright side, she did get to meet Lisa's Mum before she passed out. I insisted we go round there, mainly to accept the offer of more cake, and we spent an enjoyable half hour chatting about jet-lag, foreigners, and Fatboy Slim, before heading off to the marina for pizza. Big Sis started feeling sick en route, and requested that we return to my flat instead, so being quite concerned about her health, I responded by pressing hard on the accelerator and heading straight to Pizza Hut, on the grounds that we could always pop into the pharmacy next door as well.

Sadly, Big Sis couldn't eat any pizza, which meant all the more for me, and having loaded up on Asda's entire stock of painkillers, we took our food back to my flat. Much like the pizza, Sis was getting cold by this point, and having arrived back, she looked so feverish and unwell that I almost lost my appetite. But not quite. I let her change into my jogging bottoms (which strangely I never use), wrapped her up in a duvet with a hot water bottle, and like a slice of pizza in the microwave, she began to warm up.

Being the last of the big spenders, I'm proud to say I own a thermometer from the local pound shop, so I took Sis's temperature, found it was 38.7 (or 102 in old money), and was immediately forced to take my own temperature, and that of Lisa's, just to prove the accuracy of my equipment. Honestly, she'll be refusing to eat my Lidl food next.

So our evening seeing the sights of Brighton turned into an evening sitting on the floor taking photos of Sis under a duvet, and plying her with painkillers to bring her temperature down. By 11pm she'd perked up a bit, so I shoved her straight back into the people carrier and made her drive to Gatwick. She's currently holed up at the Holiday Inn, having declared herself too ill to fly this morning - a decision which has everything to do with her health, and nothing to do with Saddam Hussein's execution. Although with George Bush currently in Texas, and the possibility of a revenge attack imminent, you wouldn't want to be on the early morning flight to Dallas.