SADLY, it's that time of year again, when we're surrounded by snotty, coughing and spluttering people. Even, sadder (for me, obviously) is the fact that I am one of them.

Not that I'm feeling sorry for myself - not that much anyway. It's not like I've got the man-flu or anything. Instead, I've wrapped myself up, rattling with the amount of Echinacea I've rammed down my throat, and trundled off about my daily routine.

So far, I'm just about managing to keep going, but like the non-Duracell bunny, I can feel myself slowly coming to a complete halt before falling over and giving up.

Everyone handles being ill differently. Colds and flu irritate me, particularly getting a sore nose from the constant tissue wiping, having runny eyes and being unable to pronounce words correctly because I'm so bunged up.

It always happens at the most inconvenient times as well. The run-up to Christmas (no matter how much we try to deny it - it's already happening!), the kids being on holiday from school - whenever you don't have time to spare being ill, that's when it hits you.

You see someone hacking away on the bus or the train or in a shop and your instant reaction is to move away, trying to avoid infection at all costs - praying that they don't breathe in your vicinity, believing that if you breathe through your scarf, or try not to breathe at all, it will somehow act as a barrier between you and those nasty cold germs.

However, kids aren't so careful and nine times out of ten they bring the germs home from school and generously spread them round everyone they meet. Thus rendering all previous efforts not to get ill utterly pointless.

Moreover, it turns out that taking extra vitamin C doesn't help you fight off a cold, as we were led to believe. Unfortunately that means we have no excuse for stuffing ourselves with Terry's Chocolate Orange and claiming it will help.

I've never been a fan of Lemsip or any other cold or flu remedy, and cough syrup - forget it! I'd rather keep everyone up all night as I desperately try not to hack up a lung. It never tastes of orange or blackcurrant like it says on the box.

Instead, I fill myself to the brim with herbal teas and concoctions of this and that, trying to fight it as naturally as possible. Well, if you exclude the four-hourly doses of Paracetamol that is.

Not forgetting the important element to helping any cold - lounging on the couch under a mound of blankets, watching daytime TV and feeling sorry for yourself. However, being able to do this means taking the time to be ill and, as I said before, fewer and fewer of us are willing to surrender to our illness.

Yet Britain still seems to have one of the highest work absence rates around. Granted a lot of them may seem to occur around certain high-profile sports matches, which probably explains why 10,000 more men than women are off sick each week in the UK.

When speaking to friends, a lot of them hate to be off work. It's not because they love their jobs with such a passion that they couldn't bear to miss a day, but because they feel guilty about letting workmates down and feel pressured to get work done.

Now, I feel guilt as much as the next person but really, if you're ill, you're ill. Who wants to be sitting across from someone who has gone through enough tissues in an hour to clear half a rainforest or hiding behind their monitor trying to dodge the Olympic scale coughing fit that's been going on since 9am? It's not exactly a productive working environment.

Sometimes you just have to admit defeat, give in to the urge to roll up in your duvet and trudge around the house in your comfiest, oldest PJs. There's no shame in a bit of self-indulgent moping for a day or two.

Which is exactly what I've taken the hard decision to do. I'm going to take myself off to bed with a hot water bottle, a box of gentle balmy tissues and a cup of orange and ginseng herbal tea. Now if only I had a chocolate orange.