Thursday 7th September - the pace is slowing down...

Morning - dental hygienist for me; it wouldn't take long if we had changed to a dentist closer to home, but since we are still going to the same practice nearly an hour's drive away - well, we have only ourselves to blame!

Afternoon - for me, a very pleasant time in a local cafe, sitting in the shade in the corner of their courtyard having tea and shortbread with a friend and a little flock of sparrows. They were twittering about in the thick hedge immediately behind me, taking turns to see if there were any crumbs (there weren't!)

for Himself, a far more strenuous time - shopping for my father and taking the food round (which also involves checking the fridge, clearing up any consequences such as storing the apple juice carton on its side - it always leaks  -and dealing with any food past use-by dates etc). He does all of this now - I used to go round too, but the trek up to my father's flat is too far for me these days.

and - whoop whoop - he persuaded my father to try on a pair of trousers and a shirt from the selection I had ordered, and they have all been accepted! I have to shorten the trousers, but I knew that was going to be necessary.

Evening - look what we found when we were looking round the garden and doing the watering;

I thought it was very obliging of them to flower so close to the path. I planted the original corms several years ago much further back, nearer the main trunk of the smoke bush.

And these were delivered at some point during the day; I shall do my best to get them into their ready-prepared containers in the hope of new potatoes at Christmas.

 Tomorrow we only have one thing in the diary; our friend, the curate at our church, is coming for coffee, and also to do a 'Home Communion' service for us; like a Communion service in church but just for us. I am so looking forward to it.  

Wednesday 6th September - Mission Accomplished!

 I think the last few days went pretty well for my father and his brother - it was a pretty packed schedule for them bearing in mind their respective ages...

My uncle lives about 2 hours drive away, so packing, travelling, tea in our garden and settling in on Monday, plus my father cooking (microwaving) their suppers was a full day.

Yesterday after breakfast (Oat-so-simple porridge, with clotted cream and honey) we took them to a local pub for their lunch. I'm not good at drawing people (yet - that's a project for the future!) and as I try to never post photographs of family and friends on the blog you will have to make do with my rough pencil attempt;

 I took the picture from the outside of the pub looking in, much to their surprise as they were already awaiting their beers and beginning to study the menu. My father's on the left; he takes after his mother, being stocky 'like a Cornish miner', she always used to say. (Regretfully I take after him too). My uncle is thinner and leaner, like Grandfather was. 

(People always said he looked like the man in the moon from the John Lewis Christmas Avert some years back... when they were in Ireland on a family trip, people were always mistaking my uncle for the then Prime Minister. Does everyone always look like someone else?)

My father was worried about how to entertain his brother - he needn't have been, as they both spend their days having a little nap before and after lunch...

Today we collected my uncle and took him to his next hostess, about half an hour away, where he caught up with old friends and had lunch. He was taken home by his daughter-in-law, while we returned to take my father to the dentist after lunch! I shall ring him up later to make sure he wakes up and has supper; you may have noticed that reference to clotted cream; he is tending to lose weight and since he doesn't eat biscuits, cakes, sweet, and certainly not chocolate (!) it is hard to find things that he easily add to the day's meals to add calories.

'I can't really taste the clotted cream, it is wasted on me so you better have it' he said. But I assured him that if he didn't mind having some on his porridge it would probably be a good idea and keep the nurses happy... Goodness knows I really mustn't add clotted cream to my diet!

It is very touching to see them together - 'we must do this again sometime,' said my uncle as he climbed into our car with his overnight bag (2 pairs of glasses - check, phone and charger - check, razor and charger - check) and maybe we can fix something for them.

Other news;

our haul of slugs and snails decreases every night, I am glad to say. Before people mention wildlife and feeding toads and whatever, we only hunt in the top half of the garden, and I know for a fact we have a toad near the vegetable patch, a frog in the weeds by the water fountain, and a wren that goes through the undergrowth of the long flower border most days...

Our cardoons aren't as giant as I had hoped - maybe they are the wrong sort of cardoons? The are still about 5 feet high, and forming flower heads now. I had to stand on tiptoe to take this. 

Tomorrow will be busy; hygienist for me, and tea with a friend at a local cafe. The an evening zoom with my church group. Himself will be taking me to the hygienist (I need to start driving again now the world chez nous is calming down a bit) and doing my father's shopping in the afternoon, and also starting the first steps in persuading him to try on the new trousers and shirts I have bought in the hope they might fit.  

Friday 5th May - Such a day, such a day

I think it is going to take a very long blog post to cover today, and yesterday, and probably the day before.

This morning was the dentist, a bit of a long morning, as Himself had over an hour's work finishing off replacing crowns and bridge work. I just had a check up. 

This new dentist just peers intently at my teeth, using special magnifying glasses and a bright narrow-beam light, barely poking at my teeth at all. After years of dentists scritching and scratching and picking at my teeth this is a welcome change!

do you remember that toothpaste advertisement on TV; 'no fillings today, Mum!'? Well that was me today!

Home, but no lunch as himself was still too numb to eat. But there were other excitements as we approached the drive. The entrance was blocked by a white delivery drive - hurrah - we were just in time to sign for a piece of tech (a new kindle reader) which Himself had ordered, before realising there was a very good risk that we would be out and unable to sign for it! That was a real distraction from lunch.

A further distraction was the arrival of a very snazzy rollator for my father.

  Which as you can see fits into the boot of our Fiat Panda with ease. We have unpacked it and set it up to take round on Sunday.

After that we put up the bunting. That makes five houses decorated so far at our end of the road - maybe more people will join in tomorrow.

While I had my phone with me I had a little walk round the garden; EVERYTHING that I sowed in the vegetable plot has come up! That is just so cheering. For some reason it is the broad beans (crimson flower again) that makes me the happiest. They look so eager and energetic, pushing through the soil.

The tulips are still bright and attractive; we are holding off dealing with the forget-me-nots which are very exuberant this year until they have finished flowering.

The 'nursery' is fairly well-stocked at the moment;

The salvia Armistead cuttings are in the 'holey' zippy greenhouse, having been moved from the newer zippy greenhouse to make room for french bean and borlotti bean seeds.

Here are three tomato plants, Gardener's Delight, Alicante and Beefy Beefsteak, and some herbs from the supermarket which will restock the herb garden in the next few days. 

Oh yes, every part of our rather small garden is labelled in my mind; the nursery, yard, vegetable, herb and woodland and wildlife gardens, the sunny border, shady border, lawn, container garden, lower patio and upper terrace... one day (in my dreams) I will have signs, like in a 'real' garden, directing the way to each area... and maybe the number of paces, as opposed to yards, to reach the destination...

I will post on the Cross Country Stitching Project another time - suffice it to say I have the idea for May clear in my mind and can start charting. Phew, because nearly a week has gone!

Thursday 4th May - and may the fourth be with you...

 There, that's got that out of the way, I don't it think matters that I've said it at the end of the day, unlike white rabbits which needs to be said first thing, or April Fools which need to be over and done with by noon?

Yesterday and today have been a bit chockablocka, tomorrow will be a visit to the dentist and as for Saturday, well we all know what Saturday will bring; 

an ultrasound scan on my gall bladder to decide if it is a polyp that showed up on the MRI scan way back in January,  or a gall stone. Either way nothing will need to be done, but it's good to know.

Oh yes, and the Coronation... how could I forget. I watched an astonishing programme about how the dress uniforms are made, in a British factory, using silk velvet from Spain, red woollen cloth from Yorkshire, and all the metalwork (buttons, cap badges and the shiny helmets) all made in Birmingham. There was a man, an armourer, moulding the helmet by hand using a machine that defies description 'there are only 2 people who know how to do this' he said, without pausing in the work.

We shall look out the bunting and drape it over bushes in the front garden tomorrow in readiness for The Day.

Thursday 16th February - a taste of childhood - crockpottery

 The 'Bored of Lunch' leek and potato soup took us both back to our childhoods,  but not in a wonderful way.

I may have left it too long, even for the forgiving timings of a crock pot. So, the resulting soup was very bland by modern tastes. For Himself, it was too much like the potato and onion soup he frequently had as a child. He grew up in a very rural farming community, in an area without electricity or mains water. They grew a lot of veg in the kitchen garden, especially potatoes. Potato soup was cheap, nourishing and filling.

For me, the memory was of a holiday in a lakeside hotel somewhere in France. My grandmother hosted us all; her three children, their spouses, the eight grandchildren and several au pairs for a fortnight. We children, aged from about 10 to babies, were given an early supper, and the first course was always potato soup.  My memory of that soup is that it was much better than this one!

Today we had chicken and coconut noodle soup for lunch. I halved the chicken and coconut milk, but forgot to halve the other ingredients; the Thai red chilli paste, sriracha, a while red chilli, the sweet chilli sauce, the peanut butter...

Illustration in the book

This was delicious, and Very Warming on such a dreich day. The chinese noodles were massively overcooked, though. The instructions were to add them 20 mins before the end of cooking (on high). Next time, for there will definitely be a next time, I will add them nearer 5-10 minutes before the end.

We were supposed to go to the hygienist today, but a few miles from home, a warning light came on in the car. We pulled over and checked the handbook; it meant anything from something trivial to something dangerous like 'airbags might deploy without cause'. We turned round; I called the dentist's to apologise and he checked carefully checked over the car. It turns out that an abbreviated explanation is displayed for just a very few seconds when the warning comes on. This time it was merely a failed numberplate light... £5 each to buy, and we'll worth paying the £15 for having them replaced.

That's enough excitement for today.

Thursday 22nd December - wrapped the last present!

Daybreak was late this morning, and dusk came early. Or so it seemed, probably because it was grey and drizzling all day. 

Himself was off to the dentist again. Our practice has changed hands, and flung itself from a more or less one man band to a team of specialists. It's a good thing we have both retired as this new system entails multiple visits, but He reported that this was the most skilful experience of having two crowns done ever. There will be a couple more visits, to the gum specialist and then the crown specialist, but not until next year. He came back in a considerably more cheerful frame of mind than I was expecting. 

Meanwhile I zoomed a friend who has come down with covid for the first time having dodged all through, even though she was working in schools all the time. She's feeling really rubbish on day two, and resigning herself to Christmas alone this year. 

I'm hoping that plans for my father to go to my brother's house actually happen this year; he's being collected tomorrow go and stay for a few days. Last year it was cancelled as there was covid in my brother's household at the time. Fingers crossed.

This covid business.... goes on and on.... I read that sternation is now one of the symptoms.  Sternation? I looked the word up. It means sneezing. Does that mean if you regard a scene with consternation you start sneezing at it?

My Advent candle, once so tall, is reduced to a stub... just two numbers left. I have it on the table and light it at lunchtime. One number is just long enough for lunch. I was finding that if I left it to the evening I would forget it and burn too many numbers in one go. 

As I announced in the heading of this post, I have wrapped the last present - hooray! It always grieves me to be wrapping presents at 2am on Christmas Day knowing that in a matter of hours they will all be unwrapped again. 

Thursday 17th November - Drawings round-up

 I find the sketch-a-day journal a great way of looking back at a month;

Wednesday 2nd November

I finally sorted out a measured walking path up and down the garden, from the back gate (behind me in the picture) to the end of our drive at the front. It is 80 steps long, and I can manage 'there and back' three and  half times in 6 minutes, around 230 metres.  The main problem is that our garden slopes gradually down to the back gate; more to the point is is UPHILL from the back gate to the front which slows me down considerably! Still, it is a benchmark. I've been getting about 1300 steps every day. More, if I have been winding wool or playing the piano...

Thursday night is church home group night - those of us who are free meet up on zoom, ostensibly to be a church group, and we do spend some time on Spiritual Business, and then the rest of the time on Any Other Business!

Fireworks started up in earnest on Friday 4th. We enjoyed watching a brilliant display which must have been several streets along from us from the comfort of our own home.

Saturday 5th - I started my first attempt at cross stitch...    

Sunday 6th - I became absorbed in planning the postcard project mark 2...

Monday 7th - I spent several hours typing and answering emails and writing stuff.

Tuesday 8th - we ere both brave at the dentist.

Wednesday 9th - I finished the snowflake and started the next cross stitch picture.

Thursday 10th November - I could stand it no longer and cleaned the window in the little front bedroom - as we leave the door open to let the light stream in through the landing every mark was always staring me in the face.

Friday 11th November....

Saturday 12th November - we went to a favourite farm cafe to meet the offspring for a second breakfast. Also for me to collect my birthday presents (which I opened then and there - several days early) and to deliver a couple of Christmas presents.

Sunday 13th November - I decanted the birthday chocolates into the chocolate o'clock box. I'm afraid with was chocolate o'clock several times a day until the moment when they were All Gone.

Wednesday 16th November- Survived the hygienist!

 We're home, and have have recovered. 

It wasn't that bad for me as it was only a hygienist appointment this time. Although it was probably about twenty years since the last one. My dentist used to do the scritchy scratchy scraping bit, followed by the high speed tickly toothbrush stuff, but he has retired and things have moved on. 

I felt fine (ish) afterwards; not so for Himself. He came out from the hygienist in reasonable good order, but went straight into the dentist for the first of several sessions to rectify a series of problems. 

He was only in there for three quarters of an hour, but it has taken quite a while, and a couple of pain killers, before he was ready for a late lunch. Very late. At 5pm.

Ah well. We shall put this all behind us and wait for chocolate o'clock, when we open the special box and have a little bit if chocolate each.

Oh joy! It has been restocked since I last looked!

(When is chocolate o'clock? Sometime after tea, whenever we decide)

Tuesday 8th November - swimming along to the dentist

Just as we set off this afternoon, there was a real cloudburst - sudden, and luckily quite short as we hadn't gone more than a couple of hundred yards when I uttered the fateful words 'the back door IS locked, isn't it? By the time we had turned right at the end of the road, and right again at the first junction, and right again and returned to our house, (taking all of thee minutes) the rain had stopped. And yes, we had locked the back door...

That was just a lucky break in the rain for us - it pelted down down the first part of the journey so we drove through standing water and gushing gutters and, at one point, through a flood covering all of our side of the road, so that the on-coming traffic had to squeeze over to let our line of vehicles drive slowly and sloshily through.

Then the rain stopped, and the sun came out, and as we drove up the steep hill to the top of the North Downs the trees were glowing in all the autumnal greens, yellows, oranges and brown. Just wonderful.

The dentist who has taken over the practice was as careful and as gentle and as kind possible. The little thingy that puffs air to test for sensitivity uses warmed air! Oh frabjous day! 

I'm just going to have to endure the hygienist net week - but the dentist assures me that the water-pick also uses warm water - calloo callay! 

My BB is going to have to have a couple of sessions fixing a few problems over the coming weeks as well as the hygienist, so we shall be choosing the meals carefully....    

Coming home in the dusk, I watched the huge new moon just above the trees; smiling benevolently, or so it seemed.

Silver

 

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep

Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws and a silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream.

 

Walter de la Mare

https://www.poemtree.com/poems/Silver.htm

Monday 7th November - Tigger, Eeeyore, and bounciness

 “How did you fall in, Eeyore?" asked Rabbit, as he dried him with Piglet's handkerchief.

"I didn't," said Eeyore.
"But how--"
"I was BOUNCED," said Eeyore.

I have been putting off making a dental appointment for several weeks - Summer was cataract operations for BB, and then we waiting for the Covid boosters, and then for the flu vaccinations, and all the time my teeth felt reasonably fine so I wasn't worrying. 

However, these past few days the twinging molar has become - more twinging, shall we say, so I phoned the dentists. Our beloved dentist (yes, I can call him that; he had the gentlest touch and was almost the only one to do any work on my teeth for the last 36 years apart from his daughter who had the same light touch, and once or twice when there was a locum who was equally good) he retired. I suppose if he is about the same age as us that is not too surprising.

Our children have given positive feedback about the new dentist, so I phoned expecting to make an appointment for a couple of week's time.

'Yes, that's fine, we can fit you in tomorrow afternoon'.

I know just how Eeyore felt.    

Saturday 5th June - Spring and Summer

 The weather changes this week from cold and wet to a few days of hot sun, a day of determined continuous rain, and now a mix of sun and clouds coming and going.

Half term is nearly over - and a curious 'break' it was too.

'Break' seems to have been be the operative word;

Dishwasher - the pump started whining like a muted dentist drill. On investigation we discovered that we had bought it quite sometime ago, repairs would be expensive and not necessarily successful. So we have a new dishwasher, spookily silent when it is running, and swallows up so much in one load that we have unearthed the extra plates and bowls.

Cooker - one ring has been making odd 'ticking' sound as it heats up for quite a while now. So you can't say we hadn't been warned when, one day, everything was ready to eat except the oven chips. They were still pallid, unappetizing and COLD. With hindsight we should have gone ahead and eaten the rest of the meal while the chips were being blasted with heat in the Air Fryer. We could have pretended that they were a separate course. Instead we had warm steak and veg and burning hot chips.

 Once again the paperwork, and investigations on the forums brought the conclusion that replacement would be better than repair. I suppose we could have carried on with the cooker, using whichever rings still worked, and the top oven, until finally something melted or caught fire or the exploded with a bang... but the new cooker will be delivered later this month.

The Kitchen Floor - well, one thing usually leads to another, and installing the new dishwasher meant disturbing the plumbing which meant that the kitchen floor started buckling - the result of a slow leak in the water connection to the dishwasher. This was easily fixed, in terms of mechanics - merely a matter of cleaning and re-seating a washer. The floor has been persuaded to lie flat again too; the heavy work involved pulling out and pushing back the dishwasher.

The small hammer drill - I won't go into details, but it seems that if don't use a hardened bit in a hammer drill (because an ordinary bit had got into the box of bits, are you still with me?) and you encounter a surprisingly hard piece of wood when you are drilling, you can end up riveting the bit into the thingy that holds the bit. By 'bit' I mean the specific thingy that sticks out of the business end of the drill and goes roundandroundandround very fast and makes the hole. We have proved this to our dissatisfaction and ordered a replacement drill.

Teeth - did I mention a dentist earlier? We both had a 'routine' visit - and what has been 'routine' about the past eighteen months, I ask you? (rhetorical question, please don't reply) - I got off fairly lightly, but we knew that Himself would be 'in for it' as a chunk broke off a tooth several months ago. He's having another crown. I am more than a little apprehensive about the visit to the hygienist we were told to arrange. I've managed to dodge this experience for more than a decade, but like Nemesis it has caught up with me. 

In between times I have finally made up the fabric I bought back in 2019, or even 2018, perhaps. I thought I would play a game of 'Sewing Bee';

'sewists, you have one afternoon to make a simple summer top'

That is worth a whole blog post on its own... I could add 'sewing machine' to the list of items that stopped working...

Wednesday 14th August 2019 - The Tooth, Ham House, Ironwork

The Tooth has been fixed. We set off for the dentist yesterday morning, both of us playing at being 'Joe Cool' but He was concerned for what I might be about to undergo, and I was equally apprehensive. I'd slightly calmed my fears by googling 'cracked front tooth', and discovering a dentist who puts up lots of 'before' and 'after' pictures on his blog of the most alarming broken teeth, along with a short comment along the lines of 'this looked pretty drastic, but only took 30 mins to repair'. I pretended to myself that this might possibly try, and, to my surprise, this is exactly right!

She poked around, discovered a broken filling that I knew nothing about, repaired it, and then did a whole load of 'this and that and the other' to my front tooth using about a zillion different implements, pastes, lights and gadgets. She showed me the result in the mirror. Howzat!

We went on to visit Ham House, in Richmond.

It is in the most beautiful setting, in a tiny rural village in the middle of suburban London.

This is the tea room in the kitchen garden where we had lunch before going round the house.

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ham-house-and-garden

The house is full of good things to look at - here are a few things that particularly caught my attention.

We spent a while examining this window catch, which must date back to when the house was built very early in the 17th century. It is clearly hand-forged by a blacksmith.  If you turn the round wheel, (all knurly so you can get a grip) you align a slot with the spike fixed into the windowsill, then you can use the sticking up handle to bring cross bar towards you, inwards, as it were. It is hinged at the right, so it will clear the pin you can just see at the right hand edge of the frame. You then use this bar to push the window open (it is hinged on the left.). Then you will fill the room with the fragrance of the formal lavender planning in the garden below. Of course we didn't actually do this - the windows were sealed and alarmed.    

The whole wall of this apartment was hung with this embroidered panel. What an extraodinary thing of beauty.

The steward was non-plussed by the recent arrival of this forte piano, made in 1801 (Everything else in the house is in keeping with the 'Caroline' period of the property. 'Caroline' in this context means pertaining to the reign of Charles I - there a new bit of knowledge for me).

Of course I was desperate to try it out, but the steward began to look nervous at the suggestion. It is a Broadward piano, DESIGNED TO TO LOOK LIKE A SOFA-TABLE. What! The keyboard, and the little music drawer can be pushed back and under the table top, and who would ever know that it was a fortepiano? There must be a tricky bit of mechanism in there to make it playable.

Ironmongery was a bit of a feature for me during our trip round France;  

These locks and keys were part of a room full of such like objects at the Palais Benedictine in Fecamp ( a whole load of accents missing from all those 'e's).  

This iron fence divided a secret garden and miniscule house from the narrow alleyway somewhere in Rouen

A bracket, fixed to a house in Honfleur;

This is a modern (I think) bit of decoration on the walls of the Chateau Guy de Rochon, a beautiful chateau where Rommel had his headquarters, and where the plot to assassinate Hitler was planned;

The gateway

  

I thought the tendrils on the ironwork reflected the rural setting of the village and the chateau, the work to restore the gardens, and also the memories of wartime so poignantly.

Monday 8th April - First day of Easter Holidays

Since my last teaching day was Thursday, one might suppose the holidays to have started on Friday.

But we went to the dentist on Friday. I hardly think of that as an enjoyable holiday activity. Although there were pluses; no fillings, no replacement crowns, no root canal treatments. And they have started using slightly warm water in that ferocious hurty thing they use to descale one's teeth, which upgrades the experience from painful and unpleasant, to merely unpleasant with the occasional bit of 'youch!'.

Anyway, it is nice to have clean shiny teeth again; tea, or coffee, or possibly some of the tablets I take, make my teeth definitely browner over time.

The offspring were here - as I have said before, dentist time is family-get-together-time as we all roll up for one super-long appointment shared between us.

BB and Daughter and I are all a bit droopy and lacking in energy after long working hours, or too much teaching, or getting over a properly horrible cold. So there was a fair old bit of sitting around in shared book-reading or DS playing or knitting, depending on one's inclination. We did go out on Saturday, and a post about that trip will follow soon.

The dentist was one reason for the weekend reunion - the other was a belated birthday celebration, a belated Mothering Sunday celebration, and an early birthday celebration, one each for three of us. Daughter will have to wait her turn for a few months.

Today feels more like the holidays; because it is a Monday, and I'm still in my dressing gown and not teaching anyone... Second cup of coffee? What a good idea. 
 

 

Wednesday 20th February - of reading, and words

and flowers and dentists...

I am reading 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen. This is because I have signed up to a book challenge, which gives a suggestion for a 'Classic' each month.

I read 'Dorian Gray' last month, and I've made a start on 'A Room of One's Own' but not found it very gripping. Maybe I'll find a renewed interest in March! 

Looking through the selection, I'm apprehensive about the Communist Manifesto and Frankenstein as neither of these have had any attraction for me in the past. We shall see!

I've previously read 'Persuasion', 'Alice in Wonderland', 'Wuthering Heights' (only half) and 'Anne of Green Gables' , and I've seen 'Midsummer Night's Dream' performed several times, but never read the actual play. I'm looking forward to rereading them, apart from 'Wuthering Heights' , which I started as a teenager and found unreadable at the time. But then, I had the same reaction to 'Jane Eyre' first time around. 

I've been on a bit of a hunt to find out when the word 'electric' was first used; 1600, it seems. The word itself is derived from the Latin for 'amber', and was used in the context of the way amber can attract things. The hunt started when I read this paragraph in 'Persuasion';

"She was quite easy on that head, and consequently full of strength and courage, till for a moment electrified by Mrs Croft's suddenly saying,"It was you, and not your sister, I find, that my brother had the pleasure of being acquainted with, when he was in this country."

'electrified' indeed.

Earlier, Jane Austen writes of a visitor

"she only came on foot, to leave more room for the harp, which was bringing in the carriage." 

A curious construction...

Himself has gone off to the dentist this morning. It's a beautiful morning for the journey, but I don't think he's going to enjoy himself when he gets there. The hygienist is Extremely Thorough, and there are also to be discussions regarding repairs to bridgework and a replacement crown. I suspect the crown is inevitable, but am hoping the bridgework will escape. I have fortified myself with a second breakfast of tea and toast as lunch is going to be Very Late, if at all.

My contribution to his happiness has been unloading the dishwasher and hoovering the downstairs of the house. Next I intend to write some letters and walk to the local shop/post office as the weather may remain sunny for another half hour or so.

    You can see a patch of blue sky in this (slightly crooked) picture of the last two flowers on the amaryllis. I had brought a knife out from the kitchen to cut off the stalk, but will wait another couple of days before I carry out the deed.

Tuesday 23rd October - The New Car

Yes, we have swapped out both the cars, the Vauxhall Corsa AND the Alfa something-or-other (I'm no good with numbers) for a wonderful little 4-wheel-drive Panda.

It is a cheerful little vehicle, with plenty if zip, and a neat turning circle. After picking it up, we thought 'where shall we go for lunch?'

Sheffield Park seemed a good idea, fairly close, Autumn colour.... and some kind of festival going ob, as we discovered after we had joined a queue of cars bumping cautiously over a rutted way leading to the overflow car park. It would have been a nightmare in the Alfa, first pausing and gentling the car over the speed bumps, and then rolling over the ruts and tussocks of grass, wincing every time the sump guard graunched on the ground - but no - we were in the Panda, and just serenely motored along. We eyed up how far we were from the exit, how many cars were already in the overflow car park, and just headed straight for the exit. With some many other people already there, lunch wasn't going to be easy.

Never mind. We picked up the fast road from Lewes to Brighton, and discovered the Panda really is as good as we had hoped for this kind of driving, and then headed up and past Devil's Dyke to a favourite tea room/cafe we haven't visited for over a year. Why not, if it is a favourite?

The car park area for Sedlescombe Farm was Unsuitable For Alfas because of the uneven surface, potholes, and the necessity for good ground clearance. But, we were in the Panda! So we swung into the lay-by bouncing a little over the potholes and un-phased by the loose chalky surface. We were able to sit in the sun, enjoy a pleasant lunch, and read enough of the manual to work out why that little switch had it's orange light 'on', and why we would want to keep it that way (Neither of us are keen on the idea of the car switching its engine off by itself at traffic lights).

I haven't got a picture of our car - just google White Fiat Panda and that's what it looks like.

I was very amused by the Fiat Multipla parked next to us; it has the most absurd handles on the insides of the doors. This is the best angle I could find on google; you can make out the strange grey handles.



The owners of this one had found battery operated clip on lamps with beaded shades which were just perfect. But for some reason blogger is not letting me post a picture here.

I'll put one up next time.



Home then, to replace some of the piles of stuff removed from the old cars. We seem to have several of everything - first-aid kits, scrapers, yellow hi-viz jackets, car cloths....

We're still recovering from the dentist yesterday, although we were all lucky enough to just have check-ups and clean-and-polish. Even so, the anticipation, and the relief, makes for a tiring day. He has got a Proper Cold; something for me to look forward to in a few days? I hope not! 

 

Friday 4th November - Proper Post for the day

If I had managed to remember to do a post on time yesterday, it might have gone like this...

What a contrast from one week to the next...

Last Friday we were still in Canada. The weather had turned; there had been a frost, with Real Ice on the puddles and Real Frost on the cars. However, the sun came out, and we went for a glorious walk in Beamer Conservation Area; easy walking through woods along paths carpeted with fallen leaves. Every so often I would get a scent of some kind of foliage, or maybe flower; I have no idea what it was, but it was exactly like the smell you get from some kinds of real, old-fashioned pot-pourri.

What we should have looked at properly on the way in. 

View across  Grimsby and Lake Ontario to Toronto. If this picture had been better, you would be able to see Toronto looking like some kind of science fiction city; the road going directly into the distance it pointing straight at the CNN Tower .

I don't think that is land you can see across the lake in the far distance, but clouds. 

The sun was bright, the birds were singing, the sky was blue, the views were amazing. Sadly, none of us had looked at the "welcome board" on the way in, and though were were fairly sure that we would get back to the start if we continued along the path, we weren't certain enough to risk it.

So we turned round and went back the way we came. Next stop, a food court to pick up some bread for lunch. Hey! Tescos and Sainsburys! You've a long way to go to understand the Canadian idea of cake decoration! Especially for Halloween!

Home, for lunch, at 4pm! Where had the day gone?


Contrast this Friday... a tedious drive through rain and drizzle to get to the dentist. BB is unwell at the moment - sore throat and temperature - so decided to stay at home. It wasn't all bad though... last time I went to the dentist it turned out into a protracted root canal filling repair and replacement crown. This time all was well and I only had to endure a ruthless descaling and polishing.

Sunday 20th March - Lack of Posts -Teeth - WWDoP

No blog posts for ages?

This blog was originally conceived as a letter from home to family (and friends), and the family has been in telephone contact, or even here, quite a bit over the past few weeks - Mothering Sunday, a birthday...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Writing_a_letter.jpg

which means that I haven't "written" to them for a while.

However, I enjoy reading posts on other blogs I follow, so it is only fair to reciprocate! But what to write?

The last three weeks have had the added excitement of three visits to the dentist for the repair of an old root canal filling and replacement crown. That didn't hurt too much, surprisingly, but when it came to the descale and clean... I'm hoping I didn't actually speak out loud when my mind was shouting "You can stop doing that anytime NOW". Judging by the way the dentists determinedly carried on, I think I kept silence.

It was also the month for the annual "Womens' World Day of Prayer" service, this year held at my home church (I'm never sure where to put the apostrophe - but luckily I won't be expected to pass year 6 SATS tests in English next term).

I was in charge of organizing it, which entailed gathering together

all my Indonesian sarongs (to act as tablecloths for "please stay for refreshments which will be served in the hall afterwards")

A load of "props" for the service:

a piece of sugar cane (I substituted a bag of Free Trade sugar)
maraccas
a white jasmine pot plant
a candle and candle holder and box of matches
supply of brightly coloured scarves in case anyone forgot the dress code (we went for bright clothes, rather than trying to assemble Spanish-style ruffled dresses for everyone. Plus it is jolly cod in England at this time of year. I wore a thermal vest. I'm still wearing thermal vests.)
a large kitchen bowl of "provisions" (I hoped that a melon, some sweet potatoes, some bananas and a couple of leeks would fit the bill)


It looks like a list of disparate items from a mystery story.

Also required for the service
spare copies of the music
booklets for the service
spare copies of the script for the meditation
a USB memory stick with the powerpoint slides
Baskets for the collection

and probably another dozen bits and pieces - it was two weeks ago which seems like twenty years.

Oh, and round up "the cast"; Reader 1, Reader 2, four Cuban ladies, three young Cuban girls, musicians, someone to make the refreshments, someone to sort out microphones, someone to set up and operate the powerpoint presentation. We nearly drew a blank on the young girls, but one came, and we got her to do all three parts.

CUBA?! Every year, the service is created by the women of a different country, and much to our amazement, this year was Cuba's turn. That wold also explain the sugar cane.

Aha! The apostrophe comes between "n" and "s".

Anyway, that took up two mornings and one evening, and was well worth the effort.

And also reminded me I feel that the time has come for me to hand over my position on the local WWDoP committee to someone else. It will be years before it is our church's turn again, which might be a persuader for my successor.

Well, buenos noches, as we all said in the service.

  
 

Monday 23rd February - The Dentist

So this is how we do The Dentist thing.

Wait - this is how we used to do it when I was little;

My mother would collect us from our schools, load us into the car, drive 40 miles to the dentist she used to use before she was married. We would wait in the elegant dining room, reading "Giles" cartoons until it was time for our turn to cross the hall full of antique clocks to the carpeted, curtained, restful converted sitting room that was used as the surgery. Climb up into the big brown leather chair, and watch the little flickering blue and purple flame of the meths-burner sterilizer.

 Our friendly dentists would poke about at our teeth, do any fillings (we all had loads - no fluoride, no sealants back in them thar days) and then we'd all travel 40 miles back home.

I wonder how many dentist surgeries we passed on our way?

I thought this was normal - that everyone took a day off school for the dentist, that all treatment followed instantly upon the check-up, that dentists filled their houses with collections of early matchbox cars and antique clocks...

So, the first time I went to a different dentist, at University, I had a rude awakening. Up a shabby stairwell to a modern bright-white-lights-and-shiny-lino waiting room, and then through to an aseptic surgery. "You need a filling on your back left" was the verdict. So I stayed in the slippery plastic-vinyl chair, waiting... the dentists turned round, showed surprise that I was still there, and sent me to make the appointment for the filling. You have to wait? That was news to me...

Well, many years later, I made my way back south again, with my husband, and needed a dentist. Well, hey, our old dentist was only 20 miles away, and although he had retired, his successor came highly recommended.

History repeats itself; for the past 30 years we (the whole family together) have been travelling 20 miles to the dentist, taking a half day or even making a whole day of it. The checkup, cleanup, and any treatment, all happens at the same time.

Normal service has been returned. Everything is as it should be.

Friday 20th December - Christmas approaching at speed of light

We are NOT READY for Christmas! Please slow down!

We bought the tree last Sunday, and managed to get it, sopping, dripping wet, into the house on Wednesday- a surprise clear morning because the dentist cancelled our appointments.

It dried out pretty quickly and looks magnificent.

 

 

Notice anything missing? Lights, perhaps? We've got the lights, and extension cables all to hand.

 

We didn't get them, or the tinsel, or the baubles, or the lametta, or the star, onto the tree, because we set off at first light this morning to buy the Christmas Dinner:

 

 

and by the time we got home, we were DONE. I went to bed for an afternoon nap to recover!

 

We've had our supper, and it is time to light the Advent Candle, which has got a bit behind. And investigate how many windows are waiting to be opened in the chocolate calendar. Mine goes back to the 12th, but he's been catching up and has reached the 18th.

 

and then make a cup of tea for me, and maybe pour a whisky for him, and think about The Real Meaning of Christmas for a little while. What a Good Idea. 

Tuesday 10th April - D-(for dentist) Day

Visiting the dentist has always been a major family outing, ever since I was a small child, so it came as quite a shock to realise that other people don't travel twenty-odd miles, and into the next county to get their teeth checked out. Apart from when I went to university at the other end of England, I have been going to the same dental practise since before I was born (a different dentist took over 28 years ago, but I've got used to him now).

The advantage of travelling so far, is that he will usually do any drilling and filling all at the same time. One is in a certain agony of apprehension in the run up to the appointment, but we know it will all be over, bar the final coronation, should a new crown is required, by the end of the visit. It came as quite a shock when I went to a different practise and discovered that one was supposed to have a checkup and then "come back next week" to have the job finished. I didn't care for that at all, and was very glad when we moved back south and I was able to resinstate the biannual all-in-one dental outings again.

So, we get together, all four of us, every six months, and spend quality time together reading back copies of Reader's Digest in the waiting room. We can judge by the length of time we spend in the "other room" and how long the drill makes its merry whining sound, how much sympathy and commiseration each one of us will need.

Perhaps when they retire, we might think about finding a dentist in the town where we live. It would be a huge wrench to break with such a longstanding tradition. We don't think that we are at all odd, travelling twenty-six miles each way. After all, my parents (who live a few streets away from us) travel the best part of three hundred miles to their dentist. We only take half a day - they schedule a week for their visits.