Thursday, August 30, 2007

The perils of Shakespeare in the open air

So far we’ve been fairly free from travel problems – or the problems of summer, I might call them. And apart from the stinging nettles I encountered when I walked with Celia the other day – the results were itchy for a short time, but then turned ticklish, which was odd – and the midges that bit when we went to see the Chapterhouse Players at Barnham Broom a few weeks back, we’ve kept clear of anything nasty, including tummy upsets and so forth.

However, Celia did have quite a reaction to the insect bites she got that night while watching Shakespeare (it made it all the more memorable an occasion!). For well over a fortnight she was itching the places they’d bitten her, and nothing, not antihistamines, not insect bites soothers, not calamine lotion, not nothing (!) kept her from scratching. She’d wake in the night scratching. She’d have to get up in the night to scratch and go and soothe herself somehow. Her stomach and arms turned red where the skin was getting attacked constantly, and she was not a happy lassie.

In the end the itchiness went away, but for a while it looked as though being woken in the night was going to be a permanent state of affairs!

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