Speechless

It started pretty harmlessly on Friday night, as my visitor from Germany and I were invited for an Austrian feast (Leberknödelsuppe, Wiener Schnitzel and "heiße Liebe") at Amica's. I felt my voice gradually sound more and more like that of a French chansonnier after his second bottle of absinthe and third pack of Gauloises and asked for a big pot of tea to soothe my throat. By the time we got home, I could barely croak. When we got up on Saturday morning, I tried to reply to my friend's concerned "Are you feeling better today?", but all I could manage was a little "chrrrrchk" sound. At the pharmacy they recommended salt lozenges, which I duly bought and sucked on all day. They didn't help much, though and it was just as bad yesterday when I could only whisper and felt like a deaf-mute at the café, pointing at the menu and croaking my order.

I'm back to the French chansonnier stage today and - knock on wood - am hoping to regain my voice by speaking as little as possible. I used to think that "losing one's voice" was a figure of speech and I thought people were grossly exaggerating when they said they were temporarily unable to speak. Well, not so, apparently.