Although I am not generally celebrated for my knowledge of stocks and shares (Stocks: flavoursome fluids generated from the remains of our roast dinners and used to make soups and casseroles. Shares: a futile, obsolete concept of something that only happens among other people's children, viz: But Beatrice, Lily
shares her toys with her brother), I've got inside information for anyone able to benefit from it. The Bailey family are currently on holiday in Cornwall, in a small self catering cottage. And chicken pox has hit. Big time. Instead of being mother to two beautiful children who turn heads in the street, I am mother to two variants of the Creature from the Black Lagoon who would send people screaming from the streets if only I could take them out.
So, guardians of the nation's wealth, I say this: Invest in calamine lotion, Invest in aloe vera gel. Invest in bicarbonate of soda. Invest in children-friendly antihistamine syrup (although beware of that one, I intend to prosecute under the Trades Description Act on the grounds that the packaging says 'may cause drowsiness' and neither child has slept more than two hours for the past three nights).
We are going through all of the above with no regard for expense. And the Calpol goes down pretty quick in these circumstances too. It would be good to think that our chicken pox break might bring good fortune to someone else.
Steven, meanwhile, helps by taking long coastal walks to the fishmongers in the next street and bringing back dinner.
