Blog Fodder #3

Blog Fodder ~ fodder for the blocked blogger and this week’s topic submitted by Judy, over at Welcome to my World of Dreams is ...

Do you have any memories of a childhood illness?

These are short memories, little snippets ... I guess because you don't feel well at the time and therefore you don't take all that much notice of what is going on around you ... does that make sense?

So aged about 7 I ended up with a really bad bout of tonsilitis. The kind where the doctor came to see me at home instead of going to his surgery. This led to a kidney infection and I remember that I slept a lot of the time and people kept urging me to drink ...there was lemon barley water in a covered jug on the bedside table. And then on the Sunday morning (it was one of my dad's traditions to walk down to get the paper and then stop for breakfaast @ his friend Gino's Italian cafe) Dad brought back a bowl of ice-cream from the cafe just for me. And it was so lovely and cool on my throat. And my brother didn't get any!!

I ended up with Scarlet fever when I was about 9 or 10. Another doctor to the house moment. I'd been sent to bed looking perfectly normal and told "if you don't feel well stay there." * So the doctor arrived (not our normal doc, quite young and good looking if I remember correctly **) and when he asked me to poke out my tongue it was bright red like a strawberry & he made me lift my nightie up and the whole of my body looked like it had been painted red. Another week in bed :o(

And finally, I remember going into school one morning aged about 12 (I was at senior school at least) and noticing a wart on my thumb and being disgusted because at the time I thought "warts are just so ugly!" And I felt tired and crotchety all day. And by the time I got home my stomach and chest we're covered with a crop of warts and I in fact had a huge dose of chicken pox instead. They were everywhere ... up my nose, in my hair, between my toes & right down there! And my mother painted me pink from head to toe with caladryl.

Like all children I know I hated being ill because it disrupted the flow of my life ... not the whole school thing but time with my friends. Here's to hwyl and iechyd da!

* They probably thought I was trying to pull a fast one.

** I obviously wasn't that ill because I remember that much :o)