I was brave

45 minutes root canal treatment today and then another 50 minutes in a couple of weeks. And I just lay there (all tensed up and blood pressure probably doubled) and let him get on with it. It didn't hurt at the time but it was very uncomfortable. But now the injections (two!!)  have worn off and its all sore.

I'm too miserable to work this afternoon but its nearly time to think about the preliminary reading for the September seminar. And I've only written a few hundred words of my book - but I've done some research. The book won't really get going until after the MA. But its all in my head.

I'll be more cheerful next weekend when we go to the Wembley Leonard Cohen concert.

61 today

Cards and presents. TSH made me a card with pictures of our holidays. The centre spread is a photoshop job of a line of cruise crew carrying letters which spell out 'Happy Birthday'. In fact, they were spelling out 'Welcome Back' after our two day excursion to Beijing. Brilliant!
But I have had a sore swollen gum this weekend and needed an emergency dental appointment. Antibiotics start today. Root canal treatment on Friday. I am not happy. But no mention of no booze on tablets so I can still party. Thai meal out tonight.

I am not going to rename the blog.

What a week!

A week ago, we discovered that TSH's daughter's wedding venue had closed down. A team effort started up to identify venues, phone them and produce a short list for visits. Both families worked really hard. So after much worry and work, there is a new (splendid) venue. Relief all round!!

We were lucky - we have a couple of months to rearrange. Some people had four days!! When you ask wedding coordinators for availability, they all say 'this year?' in a tone of great incredulity.

This is my 'summer holiday' from my MA course. I thought I was going to make inroads into my novel. But I haven't got far, except for some background research.

It's my eyes

Went to the opticians for check-up after last year's issues with my eyes. The pressure was high when she did the 'puff test' so she decided she wanted to put a 'probe' into my eye. I had hysterics at the very thought and agreed to go back after diazepam the next day. Well, I took 2 tablets and that meant she got the drops in after only a minor tussle. She had shown me the 'probe' and I thought I could do it. But then she produced something that looked like a tissue which she wanted to touch against my eye to put orange dye in (did I say that orange is NOT my colour? I am 'summer', which means blue, red, purple). Well, I can't keep still whilst this happens - when I go for a professional makeup I always do my own mascara. I told her it was torture and not going to happen.

But I have raised eye pressure and all the standard tests involve touching the eye. They are sadists. It is a human instinct to protect the eyes. I have to be referred and I refused to go to the local hospital where I was traumatised last year. She suggested I might find someone more sympathetic on the net (!!!).

Linguistic notes - 1. 'probe' has negative semantic prosody and sounds like something aliens use after an abduction. 'Sensor' would be better.
2. 'I would understand if it hurt' means 'I don't understand you'.
3. 'It is weaker' meant to her that the prescription was weaker as my vision had marginally improved. To me, this first sounded like bad news and then made me realise she was viewing this from the perspective of the prescription. She is a technician not someone who should deal with real people.

My optic nerve and peripheral vision are both good, so no need for total panic.

Have we missed out?

Our house is pretty well an Olympic-free zone but there is so much hype now that I am wondering if it was the right decision. Everyone else is so enthused by it and I know the GB athletes (including the brilliant Northerners) have done really well. But TSH didn't want to watch it and I was totally put off all sport at school so it didn't seem worth starting. I was always the one left behind after they'd picked the teams! And I still can't swim, in spite of it being the only course of private lessons my parents ever arranged for me. I rode a bicycle for a few yards once but I never really mastered it and I'm sure I've totally forgotten it now. So the Olympics is not a natural interest. I would much rather have been part of the team which just put the Rover on Mars.

It's odd at the moment to have no reading and no assignments. So I've resumed work on my novel.

Submitted

Managed to get my essay in with two days to spare. Not sure its brilliant but it should pass. I rather lost focus because of the cruise. And then we went to look at TSH's daughter's wedding venue. Really very nice. It will look very elegant when we are all scrubbed up with our new outfits. I still need a hat and shoes.

But now I've got a month's breathing space before the course gets going again. Lots of things to do, though.

This is the haiku I wrote on holiday:

Blue gold domes glinting

Grey rain mist cloud obscuring

Northern water land