Our next major stop-off on our journey through the “Diseases of Central English Nurseries” has been chickenpox.

“We’re passing on the left a headache. Further down the street you can see a high temperature. Beyond the loss of appetite is a covering of spots and finally scabs.”

And crikey, did P ever get the chickenpox.

I’ve seen quite a few poxy children over the past year but I haven’t seen any with as many spots as P. He quite literally had them everywhere - including the little man’s little man.

He seems to be at that age though where the pox haven’t affected him too badly. He didn’t itch or, at least, he didn’t scratch which was a real bonus. He did feel unwell for a few days before we realised what was actually wrong with him but again nothing too bad.

And by the time the spots appeared he was nearly back to his normal self - just a bit spottier, obviously.

This bought on quite an usual feeling in me. It was something close to repulsion.

The spots go almost instantly pusy - which is never nice - and as I’ve said P had hundreds of spot all over his body. He was a 12 kilo walking lump of pus disguised as the mini-Elephant man.

This in turn gave me a bout of paranoia whenever we were out and about.

P has a lot of people look at him - he’s got a lovely face (I would say that) and he always smiles at people. Normally people looking at him is wonderful. But suddenly people were *staring* at him.

“Oh, God” my brain was narating others thoughts “look at that pusy child. How dreadful!”.

Of course, most people probably actually though “Chickenpox, oh dear”.

These paranoia feelings meant that I did things in town as quickly as I could so’s to be back in the house pronto.

Anyway, the good news is P is much better now. He only has a few scabs left on his head and everything has healed up OK - including the little man’s little man.

And best of all this is an illness we really can tick off the list because it’s very unlikely he’ll ever get it again.