Tuesday the 2nd of January, the 15th anniversary of my mothers death. I do not think about it often but having spent most of last year surrounded by the family documents and creating a family tree I guess such stuff is rolling around in the background of my mind. I certainly remember the visits to the hospital with my sister and the some of the aftermath, although in reality my sister dealt with much of that. It was the last time that a substantial number of my relatives were alive and fit enough to attend the funeral and the post event drinks back at the house. My recall is probably sketchy but I do remember thinking that the family was full of odd folk who seemed to lack social skills, I think it is a major trait of that side of my family. Any way I woke up with these thoughts in my head until I remembered that I was going to the dentist at 10:30am to have work done for a crown.

So I went into healthcare mode, shower (must never be smelly for a doctor or a dentist), light breakfast with morning meds followed by what I always hope is a redeeming long cleaning of the teeth. Its pissing with rain and I realise that the current stock of footwear that I have in the porch is not suitable for the weather. I rummage in a storage cupboard and emerge with my blue boots. I’ve had these a while but not worn them too often but now they come to my rescue. I order new laces for them as I think I’m going to be wearing them a lot this winter and spring judging by the forecast. The rain is very heavy so once again I resort to my old prison service parka, built to keep out a raging torrent and enough pockets to keep all the paraphernalia of the job dry. So encased in waterproof wear I march down to the street to the dentists but before ensuring that my son in Sweden is able to pick up the last of the delayed Christmas present for my granddaughter.

I arrive promptly on the dot of 10:30 and I am in the chair very quickly. I’m having a crown on a big back molar. Mercifully I am injected with the magic potion to make half my mouth numb and once I am impervious to pain the work begins. My mouth becomes an excavation site, I am drilled, plugged, drilled some more, once again rough drilled and have a trough of putty stuck in my mouth before I am once more drilled. I’ve got an entire building site of equipment in my mouth at times. Having been demolished down to pure virgin tooth I am reconstructed until finally my excellent dentist matches me up for colour and prepares a temporary crown. She also uses a scanner to send off data so that the lab can 3D print my final crown. (That bit is really cool, the rest isn’t so much). My temporary crown gets fitted and I receive instruction on how to look after it till the real one arrives and we book a date to do that. I went in at 10:30 and walked out at 12:00pm. Its been a solid hour and a half of jaw aching dentistry. I pass reception paying a deposit on my crown and wander home in the unrelenting rain. That has been a long morning and I quietly wait for the feeling in my mouth to return and the ache in my jaw to stop.

Once home I move the car off the drive so that Tesco can deliver and then draft the blog while waiting till I feel safe to drink tomato soup with out ending up looking like an over indulgent vampire who has rushed his meal. As the feeling in my mouth returns so does my appetite.

I lunch and then spend an afternoon looking over some proposals to change our drive way and patio. There is a message from HMRC which I check out to find that they have yet to process my payment so they are still sending me emails telling me I owe them. The evening draws in and after a tea we settle down to binge watch the second series of Tourist until I can take no more and put the bins out, down my night meds and go to bed. My jaw aches from the days dentist adventure, tomorrow my diary is empty so I am hoping to get back to simple things like reading, writing a letter and rowing.