Roseola Infantum - a Harry Potter spell or a virus?

Harry Potter couldn't cast this spell

No, it's not a Harry Potter spell but a little known virus that affects children between 6 months and 3 years.

N came out in a rash a couple of weeks ago. As children are, she was fine the day before and we'd been to Wisley having a lovely picnic but the next day she had a rash on her upper back and upper arms.  It disappeared when I pressed it (my first course of action for *any* rash) and she wasn't unwell in herself. No temperature or appearing to be under the weather. I presumed that it was simply a heat rash or hives. Perhaps rolling around on the grass at Wisley something had irritated her skin?

The following day it looked a bit worse and she had it all over her face too.  I made an appointment at the doctors for her immediately and a few hours later hubby took her down.  Having given her a thorough check, the doctor said it was Roseola Infantum aka Three Day Fever.

There seems to be little known about this 'common' virus.  Of course, she was contagious but it turns out that she was up to 10 days ago BEFORE the rash even makes an appearance. Typical of a childhood illness isn't it - you don't know you have it until it's too late for everyone around you!

As she'd been in and out of school with S, I called them up to let them know about it, sending a picture of N's back to help other parents.  The children themselves wouldn't catch it but there are also a lot of younger siblings so best to be warned.

N showed no signs of the temperature during the whole process but the rash did appear on her face so it clearly is different in every child.  Some need Calpol (or equivalent) whereas others, like N, were absolutely fine but it's always worth getting it checked out as you want to eliminate anything more serious such as Measles.

Fortunately a few days later the rash started to vanish (from her face first) and she is back to...errr...the same as she was when she had the rash, just less spotty!

Stuck in the middle (of the mud) with you

The gang

My step-sister and nieces came down this weekend and we decided to go and get a few more caches to help them add to their total.

Deciding on a nice, easy walk around, we opted for Horsell Common despite the fact that we had already done all the caches in the area.  However, for newbies, there are quite a good variety of caches to be found and it's not too long a walk.  

We also had a puzzle cache to collect there (so clearly no ulterior motive)

Off we went and parked up opposite the common in a bumpy road at the lay-by.  

Now, we've been to this area before as we said and the pathway had been dry and easy to walk on so we did contemplate not wearing wellies as it hadn't rained much at all of late.  However, we all had our wellies in the boots of our cars so decided to don them anyway.  That was a good choice!

We headed through the gate into mud. Lots of it.  Off we went to find TV Shows #1 which was a nice, quick find.  We had solved the puzzle some months ago but hadn't collected it as we didn't need anything else in the area so this was a great excuse to grab it.  

Phones at the ready.  Go!

Right now to to find the other caches for the family.  Off we trotted to the first one, HG Ring 17 which was another nice easy find.  The folks spotted it quite easily but it was too wet to sign.  We had avoided quite a lot of very boggy ground to get to it - much to our surprise.  Where had all this water come from?

Not at all muddy then

We aimed for the next one MIM03.  We remembered this one well as we'd sent the teen in to get it last time.  This time it was the youngest niece who was sent in for the collect.  Gorse is not a nice thing to be around/in and she nearly lost some hair backing out much to our amusement.  

Away we went to the next MIM04.  Oh boy, if we thought the path we'd been on already was muddy, this was a whole new ball game.  Hubby and I decided to pass the mini-Scorpios over the fence.  He climbed over first and I lifted them up to him so we could avoid the gate altogether but then I and the rest of the family went through.  It was a close one with wellies almost sucked off.  This cache made the family laugh. The youngest niece was not too keen to make the collect this time as the 'fun guy' looked like it was in a monster's mouth she said.  We had a look and had to agree.  She did go for it in the end and it was signed.

Back we went down the very muddy path.  The same procedure for the littlest cachers and hubby but the rest of us went through again.  Oddly, it seems the gate area had become more muddy in the few minutes since we'd passed.  As you can see, it was a bit of a struggle.  

Teen nearly lost her wellie and couldn't move. She was in danger of going for a face-first tumble into the mud so I lent a hand (reluctantly of course LOL).  After all, it would have been very funny wouldn't it...

Off down the muddy path to HG Ring 13.  Away the family went to the lovely, new erected fence and gates.  Hubby and I had read them the clue.  A bit of "Err....*old* post" followed and then they spotted the culprit and the find was quickly made.

Ahh...there it is

Just two more to get.  On our way to HG Ring 14 S managed to get her welly stuck in the mud. Unfortunately she was still moving forward at the time.  I wish I'd got the photograph of her, muddy tights on one side, welly in the mud behind her and hubby holding her up with J trying to get the welly back on while balancing in the mud with her own wellies sinking.  We were laughing too much though as we'd only just discussed this very thing happening on a previous muddy cache hunt we had done.  Isn't it typical.  Oh well, a bit of a muddy welly for two more caches wouldn't hurt.

HG Ring 14 was a very quick spot as it was pretty much open to view.  S grabbed it just as I noticed the huge pile of dog mess right beside it. How disgusting.  The family made the sign and put it back quickly. Sorry but we didn't look around for any camo as I was busy wiping S's hand with a wipe just in case any poo had got onto the box.  I wish these dog owners would clean up after their animals as there are dog waste bins all around.

Love daddy's hat

We headed into the centre of the area to make one final collection of HG Ring 16.  Hubby spotted it quickly from a distance (cachers eyes were working well today) and we had to give the family a gentle reminder that they needed not to just look 'down' all the time.  They soon spotted it and although the log was very damp, they managed to sign it.

Back we headed to the car.  Hubby found a reasonably dry path with N but of course, the rest of us went the more direct (but muddy) one. Well, what difference was one more lump of mud on our wellies going to make?

Where did this dry path come from?

A fun time out and at least the sun shone a bit.  We are looking forward to going up to visit the family in June and caching around their area of Milton Keynes.

Impetigo in children

Day 1 of impetigo

Poor little S.  She has had chapped lips for a few days and has complained of them feeling sore.  Yesterday she used her chap stick before nursery but when she got home, the area under her bottom lip had gone very red indeed. She said it hurt a bit and we put a little bit of Sudocrem on (no Vaseline in the house unfortunately) to help keep it moist and stop it hurting. Hey, if it works for tiny sore bottoms, it would work for sore lips right?

Last night a 'spot' appeared on her bottom lip. Oh no, must be a cold sore. I popped a Compeed patch on (couldn't find anywhere that it would be unsuitable for children and it can't hurt surely) to help her as it was feeling very sore. Off she went to bed.

This morning when she woke up she clearly didn't have a cold sore. I was convinced she had impetigo and looked it up. Yep, sounds like it. Carefully peeled the patch off and put the towels she has used in the wash and got her a 'special one' just for her face.  Phoned the doctors and off we went.

I expected the doctor to give us some Fucidin cream as it seems that is the common prescription for impetigo and therefore I wasn't too concerned about a bit of the scab peeling off with the patch as the medical websites said that the scabs had to be washed off carefully before applying the cream.

After our usual 1hr 10min wait (our doctor is great but boy can he chat!) we saw him.  He took one look at her and said she had quite a bad little impetigo infection.  He prescribed an oral antibiotic which she started straight away.  Why oh why can't they make these things taste less disgusting for little people? It was foul (I tried a tiny bit) and she cried taking it.  I have a supply of chocolate buttons ready for the rest of the doses as it's 4 times a day for 7 days.  Also bought some Vaseline to make sure her lips stay moist.  She's still got a bit of Sudocrem under her lip in the picture if you wandered what it was.

Impetigo is caused when the germs get into your body, mostly around the mouth, from cuts or sores.  The doc said that her having chapped lips was a good way for it to start.  She's had a bit of a cold too which hasn't helped so a bit run down I guess.

At least she's off nursery for the rest of this week and not back until Monday anyway so no need for her to miss anything (not that they really would miss much at her age).  No swimming tomorrow though which is a shame but after 24 hours on the antibiotics she won't be infectious which is good as she has a friend's birthday party on Sunday.

It seems that impetigo is very common in children.  It looks worse that it feels (she told me) but you need to be so careful as it can be passed around the family quite easily.  S is brilliant at not touching or picking spots or such so I know that she will be good but it's N I worry about as she loves to poke a spot on your face!  S will have to be prepared to bat her away but so far she's been good and just asked about it so we told her and said not to touch.

Warner Bros Studio Tour - Harry Potter

Yesterday J and I headed off to the Warner Bros Studio Tour at Leavesden Studios to see The Making of Harry Potter.  We were very, very excited.

Here we are!

We have both watched all the Harry Potter films and have really enjoyed how the story has evolved and the characters matured.  It was therefore the icing on the cake to go and see the sets, props and making of.

Lots of car parking when we arrived and you are directed to spaces, Disney style.  Our entrance was at 5.30pm so the place wasn't too busy.

We couldn't believe it when we were standing just by the large chess pieces outside as a shout went up and running into J's arms was her cousin!  Who'd have thought it.  She had just come out and said it was brilliant.

Chess anyone?

As we were early, we had a hot chocolate to warm ourselves up first in Costa, then decided to look around the gift shop.  As expected, unless you had a second mortgage to spend, everything was very expensive.

It's a nice scarf

I would have loved a house scarf but at £25 that just wasn't going to happen.

The Every Flavour Beans were also a bit of a shock at just shy of £10 a box.  We didn't fancy finding they had lots of earwax, vomit or earthworm flavour either.  Call us picky.

We also loved the house cloaks. Excellent for a fancy dress party but at almost £80 each, again it was a luxury we were never going to use.  In fact, you could buy pretty much every house colour full uniform there. Amazing.

Some of the masks, charms and wands were lovely to see.  Here is a selection of them.  They were £25 each but I would only buy one if they did real magic - sadly they didn't.

L-R: Harry, Hermione, Ron

Once we had finished looking around the shop (we bought a chocolate wand and a blood lolly), we went and joined the queue to go in.  At the entrance to the tour is the Cupboard Under the Stairs where Harry had his room.  A good insight of things to come.

Harry's bedroom

The doors opened and in we went.  A little film show about how the films came about and then into the theatre next door for another introduction by the main characters.  The screen lifted and we were at the entrance to Hogwarts!

Hogwarts entrance

Doors opened and in we went.  Wow!  It was amazing.  Here are a selection of photographs for you. I'm sure you will recognise lots of the areas and props.

We had to take the opportunity of getting photos of us flying on broomsticks (I'm sure my ex-husband won't be surprised by a picture of me on one).  You could also get a photo of yourselves in the flying car.  The photos were reasonably priced - £12 for one or £16 for two and as you could mix and match, it was a good offer.  J and I were delighted with our pictures and what a lovely memory.

This Quidditch game is easy

After we finished this stage area (there are two called J and K oddly enough - I wonder why? ;-) ), we went to the outside lot where there was the Knight Bus, car, motorbike and sidecar, Privet Drive and the bridge at Hogwarts - all great photo opportunities.

At the entrance to the next stage were some more chess pieces. They really are magnificent as you can see.

Heads without bodies

Next was the creature feature, where all the masks were made and the creatures designed.  Again, amazing to see.

We then all the technical drawings for different parts of the set.  Some of these pieces were then made out of paper.

Original artwork was on the walls next.  I wonder what it is worth?

Round the corner to some more paper pieces. I never made anything like this out of paper at school!

Paper Hogwarts

Whomping Willow - made of paper

Through another area to literally be met with a Wow! experience.  The scale model of Hogwarts. You really can't get the best impression of the fine detail from the photographs but I'm sure you will get an idea of just how impressive it is.

Lastly, the wands. All the boxes are individually made and there is one for every person who was involved with Harry Potters - writer, cast and crew - from J.K. Rowling through to the driver of the Hogwarts Express and every cameraman, electrician and make-up artist.  Amazing to see.

The Harry Potter tour is a must for any fans.  The tickets may well seem expensive but it is worth it.  We went for the basic entry ticket.  We didn't need a guide book and we didn't hire the digital guide and we really didn't miss out.  For a once-in-a-lifetime experience, get yourself along.