Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Well it seems that one decision has been made for me. I had been putting it off for a month or two, but now I don’t think I can. This is the trouble with dentistry – once you get involved with them it’s a domino effect inside your mouth. They either find new things to pay for putting their kids through college, or leave little dental time bombs so you volunteer to pay them the money they need to put their kids through college. Either way, Gentle Reader, the loser is most decidedly not the dentist.

Having – you should forgive the phrase – bitten the bullet and gone to the dentists for the first time in many years, I have had two fillings and one extraction. The decision I have been putting off is whether to pay £400 for a crown that they cannot guarantee or simply have that tooth extracted too, leaving me with a corking gap on the left. Long-time readers will know that I have a fear of dentistry; an atavistic horror that has only partially been assuaged by recent experiences. Despite this, I was leaning toward the expensive gamble of the crown that may not take. I don’t really want more gaps than I need. Sadly, finances may mean that I have to go for a simple extraction.

Last night there was a twinge in the tooth in question. Not enough to disturb me badly and certainly not enough to keep me awake last night, but during the day today there has been the occasional throb - not a continuous ache, but certainly the odd wave of ache. I have been to Boots and purchased my favourite paracetamol and codeine painkillers just to keep it under control. I’ll see how it goes for the next couple of days, but if it keeps up I shall have to pay a visit again. With the move I cannot afford a crown, so the cavernous gap on the left it may well be.

Bum.

I know it’s not yet quite a fortnight since my visit to the dentist that culminated in a frozen mouth and a hole where a tooth used to be, but I had hoped that what, ten days on, the gum would be a little tougher where it’s grown back over the gap.

Admittedly the other space where I had a tooth pulled is thirty years old and the shape of the gum there has changed so that you’d never know there was a tooth ever there other than as signified by the gap. The recent pulling, however, is far from that stage. The gum is healing and has closed over the place the tooth root used to be, but it is still obviously tooth root shaped and tender. I still have to do most of my chewing on the other side of my mouth and I still have to be a little careful when I attack my gnashers with the tooth brush.

Last night I stabbed the gum with, of all things, a sliver of crust from some garlic bread and crivens, but it hurt. It drew blood, too, though that stopped quickly. The point is, it’s still tender and sore and no amount of antiseptic mouth wash is toughening it up. I think that I shall have to resort to sluicing my mouth with warm, salty water. If that doesn’t loosen the cookies, nothing will.

I hate dentistry.

Really and truly. With a vengeance.

Well I survived the meeting with Clan Furtle. It seemed to go well enough: the simple expedient of buying the drinks, making small talk about the relative merits of hoppy beers over heavier brews, a couple of comments about this and that and nodding sagely a lot of the time seems to have done the trick - by which I mean no obvious gaffs. As far as I am aware there have been no telephone calls, texts or emails telling Elle to run for her life or anything like that, so maybe I passed muster. Or maybe the family is in shock and intervention will come later. Who knows?

After about three hours we made our excuses and disappeared into the driving rain for a quick charge to the West End, where we bought fresh coffee beans from Monmouth Street (having taken delivery of a coffee grinder). We have since discovered that Whetstone is oddly bereft of anywhere to buy a cafetiere, so I may have to nip into Finchley tomorrow and attempt a purchase from there.

Weekend viewing started with the Torchwood finale on Friday (reviewed on video for Furtle who missed it); barely a dry eye in the house. The season premiere of Doctor Who, which was light weight fun: entertaining but not especially deep - one for the kids (which, to be honest, is good as it is actually a kids' show) but with a little foreshadowing of future plot. To my pleasure, Catherine Tate was restrained enough not to stink the show out and the choreography for the fist part of the episode was fun, just stopping before the joke wore out. Beyond that, further DVD episodes of the X-Files taking us deeper into the rather unfairly maligned seventh season (we're on a timetable: Furtle needs to complete her X0Files education before the new movie is released). My memory is going. I'm sure we watched a movie on Saturday night but I cannot for the life of me remember what it might have been. Maybe we just talked about it? Blimey, it was only a little over 24 hours ago...

This afternoon we partook of the season premiere for Battlestar Galactica season 4. A solid start, with hope of more shenanigans to come. Finally on the televisual front, tonight we slapped Stardust into the DVD player as neither of us had seen it at the movies. Highly recommended. Nice to see Michelle Pfeiffer again and the dead princes should have their own show. Robert DeNiro must have enjoyed every minute of filming.

I have tomorrow off. A further trip to the dentists, this time for the attentions of the hygienist and then it's done until I decide whether to empty my bank account and endure the root work or extraction on the remaining broken tooth at the back. Whatever, it won't be fore a while until the gum has healed from Thursday's attentions.

I expect that I shall be out of the house when the post arrives and I shall miss the copy of Maximum Power I am hoping to receive from Amazon. Still, we shall see.

As soon as I have drunk my cup of coffee I am off home. Hurrah!

To go to the dentists. Harrumph!

Oh well.