by VANORA LEIGH

SCRATCH the dog on the top of its head, a part which even the ablest canine contortionist cannot reach, and its eyes will roll in ecstasy. A bit like mine when I rub my back against the edge of the living room door.

I've been doing a lot of that recently, usually around nine or ten in the evenings, and always after a warm bath.

Idon't wish to be offensive but I seem to have acquired an uncontrollable and widespread itch, accompanied by an equally unbridled rash. There isn't a part of my body which doesn't tingle and torment me - which may sound erotic but actually feels like being set upon by a thousand fleas.

And at first that's what I thought it was, courtesy of my mother's dog, an animal which looks as if it's been vacuumed and polished. Yet animals, as we who don't keep them know better than those who do, are often mobile homes for all sorts of nasties that jump, sting and nip.

However, after being put in my place on that one, and being warned not to go near the dog in case I infected it, I spent a thoughtful half-hour with my Home Doctor.

This is a battered old paperback guaranteed to alarm and unsettle those of nervous dispositions, the very people who are, of course usually found reading such literature.

Icame to the conclusion that I could have something rather serious and possibly terminal - or I could have hives, also known (rather boringly I think) as nettle rash, though the only nettle I've grasped in recent weeks has been my self-assessment tax form.

In proper medical circles, hives is called urticaria. It's a rather dramatic allergic reaction to just about anything on the planet.

You itch, you scratch, you come out in blotches the size of saucers and whopping great weals on your back. Tracking down what caused it is not easy - it could be anything you ate, drank or touched.

Stress can also bring on an attack of hives, though let me tell you, it's pretty stressful standing in your underwear in front of a mirror and looking as if you've been flogged (less stressful, I'll admit, than actually being flogged).

Self-diagnosis is one thing, a cure is another. For that I needed a prescription from my doctor, who seemed happy to give me a second opinion.

"You've got hives," he said. "Ah, urticaria," I replied smugly.

Outside the chemist's, who should I spot but my mother. "Well, were you right?" she asked. "Have you got herpes?"

"Hives," I hissed, "hives, as in bees."

"Of course," she replied. "Weren't you once thinking of getting some of those when you were going through that self-sufficiency phase? You were going to keep them in Preston Park but you were frightened of being stung."

And she was right. So I had - but that was in the days when I had an allotment and carried sacks of horse manure in the car boot.

Anyway, I'm now taking these tiny tablets which mean I can't drive, or drink (and certainly not simultaneously). Instead they make me too drowsy to scratch.

My mother hasn't mentioned the herpes word again, though I did overhear her on the phone telling her sister (or, from my point of view, my aunt) that I hadn't been very well.

"It's something to do with wasps..." she said.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.