Flu used to mean rest. Now, with a 9-week-old and island isolation, it means juggling exhaustion, worry and parenthood – all while dreaming of takeaway, says Elle Duffy

Getting sick used to feel like an excuse to slow down.

It was a free pass to park yourself on the couch, drag the duvet in, and settle down for what would be a long day of sniffling and feeling sorry for yourself. It came with permission to just stop.

Since moving here, we’ve had our fair share of flus and viruses. All it takes is for someone to return from the mainland at the wrong time and suddenly, our island of 40 is coughing and spluttering in some sort of village chorus, a choir of illness. And that feeling of slowing down is amplified by our level of remoteness, a sense that the world won’t mind if we take a second to recover. But this winter, it’s different.

It started quietly. A sore throat that I blamed on our open bedroom window, a headache that I thought would be solved by downing a pint of water. But by late afternoon, my husband and I were both incapacitated, walking around our house with a hunch in our shoulders that made us look........

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