The Itchy and Scratchy Show

I was 13 when I got chickenpox, a late bloomer compared to virtually everyone else in my class, who'd copped it years earlier. I vaguely remember it meaning a couple of days in a darkened room, trying very hard indeed not to scratch (and failing in some cases - my arms still bear a couple of scars to prove it), followed by a week off school to be on the safe side.

I've not really thought too much about it in the intervening 21 years, mostly, I suspect, because of the old 'once you've had it, you can't get it again' clause. Now, however, I have a family ...

I've already posted about the tendency of schools to act as breeding grounds for every virus under the sun, and chickenpox is this month's star prize for the afflicted. A brief flash of concern crossed my mind for the kids, until I checked and found that both of them have been vaccinated against it

(Why didn't we have vaccines for chickenpox in the 80s? Back then, it was almost a question of chucking the uninfected into a plague room with carriers of the disease so they'd just catch it and get it out of the way.)

So ... I've had it and my kids have had jabs to stop them getting it. No worries then.

My wife, however, has had neither the jabs nor the disease when younger, which is why she's covered in spots and housebound for the next fortnight.

Sounds like the Australian education system didn't have those plague rooms.