Decoction of whole plant

The studio, or flat, has become a house of colds, but the children still kneel with a kind of non-corporate glee by the tree, their brave blue eyes glued to the wrapped presents, as if each package was a delicate conceptual masterpiece placed on the chic wooden floorboards of a snug gallery down some handsome foggy boulevard. The artist has with the children made a peppering of decorations for this tree. They hang from fledgling branches like miniature hot air balloons. Others spin gently with dual identities. The presents below are so convincing they may actually be real and not like the many dismayingly empty boxes dominating the channel i-dents on our screens. I am looking at the tree now. It has its arms open wide, though of course it really has no choice in this matter. At least it was grown in the land of some of my ancestors across the choppy sea. As I look up again, our daughter is looking at me. She has put her hair in plaits and though she has a cold she smiles with a kind of vivid and extraordinary health. The artist is sitting on the bright red sofa discussing her day on the phone. The artist's son has moved away - body-slid more like - from the gift-laden base of the tree. He was playing with some toys, also hailing from across the sea as it happens, but in the course of this sentence has moved to the doorway behind me. A small part of us all is perhaps made too aware of the enormous build-up still to be had before the climax of the festive day. It is most un-Zen-like, I am thinking. Not that I would know. (I know nothing but know I know nothing.) Just as I'm contemplating our likely healths over the next few days - though happily harnessed, I am sure, to the cheer of our children throughout - I spot one of my survival books on the shelf. I rise from the round red table and pluck the book down. I return and open it by chance on a page of remedies. Stopping bleeding. Cleansing rashes, sores, wounds. Fevers. (Could be useful if the colds don't subside.) Now, let me see. These following plants will induce perspiration to break a fever, it says. Elder: infusion of flowers and fruit. Lime: infusion of flowers. I wonder if there's anything to help write blogs. Ah, dandelions are good for constipation. No, I will settle instead for the tree.