Unanswerable questions No. 1

Realistically, I should have started this section off way back when I started this blog.

In actual fact, an unanswerable question should’ve been the reason I started this blog!

But, as is often the case, certain opportunities pass us by, at the time meaning nothing, a mere flicker of a thought, an inconsequential insignificance. Long before I had started logging snippets of conversation, before I realised that a funny comment from one of my children could provide me with the meat for the bones of a short story for whoever might one day happen upon these pages, I would laugh out loud at a silly word or phrase, promising to always remember what it was that made me laugh in the first place.

Of course, my memory has become poorer and poorer, so I am more than happy to record the latest ‘smile-maker’ in our household, both for you and for me.

Annabel is covered, I mean, absolutely covered in angry, raised spots – she’s got the pox.

Literally.

The chicken pox; it has been a miserable few days for her.

Her temperature is through the roof, she doesn’t want to walk because the spots rub inside her legs, she wants to be carried but you can’t pick her up because she has spots in her armpits, she wants a cooling bath to stop the itching, she wants to get out of the bath because the water isn’t helping, the cream is too cold, her pyjamas itch etc etc and she is screaming like she hasn’t screamed for a very long time.

Poor Missy.

She is miserable but through it all has flashes of her tough little self; she rallies and manages to smile and talk about her day even though she is flinching as you rub cream over the bumpy, sore looking spots on her tummy/back/neck/thighs. The thing is, while you are sat next to her bed, feeling sorry for her and listening to her prattle on (in order to keep you at her side), she asks, "why do we have to have chicken pops?"

It’s a tiny mistake but one which reminds you of how small she is and, more importantly, how grown up she is the rest of the time.

In a similar vein, Joseph has his (thankfully rare) moments of misbehaving but something in him knows not to mess about when something’s not right. In this case, his sister being unwell; apparently his behaviour today was exemplary.

Ooh, talking of a couple of diamonds, we went to see the Aurora collection at the Natural History Museum last weekend.

Go and see them; they are beautiful.