Good For Peace Of Mind

Monday sees me at the dentist for my annual check-up. I’m never sure if I should be pleased or not pleased that year after year the process is a mere two minute poke around my mouth before they tell me that all is fine and then relieve me of £25 (or whatever it is now) at the door. Good for peace of mind I suppose.

Then it’s a dog club committee meeting which is just as perfunctory but clocks in at around two hours rather than two minutes.

On Tuesday I am actually early enough to the bus stop to catch the earlier bus, the one that would have got me to work on time, but it’s full. So I don’t get chance to get on it and I have to wait for my usual bus, the one that means I’m late. This is why I don’t bother rushing.

Team GB Live put some more tickets for Tokyo 2020 on sale and I snap up a few more than means we now have something for every day we are there. We now have an eclectic mix of Archery, Weightlifting, Rugby, Rowing, Hockey, Athletics, Golf, Canoe Sprint and Beach Volleyball. I don’t believe they actually have a beach and the Beach Volleyball is being held in a park right by the edge of Tokyo Bay. So they have the sea but they’ll be building a temporary beach, just like Nottingham do.

Most of the events are only for a few hours, so we’ll have plenty of time to do other things as well although we are not usually very good at being tourists.

In the evening I run a swift five miles from work then get on the i4 in Borrowash while L does a session at her run club. Then on Wednesday she runs 14k with Daughter. Scarily that’s a third of race distance, marathon race distance that is.

Wednesday is also when she gets her first ‘Happy Christmas’ greeting from someone, which is shockingly early.

I did contemplate biking to work that day because a sunny day was forecast, though a cold one. However when I slip and slide on ice and wet leaves while walking the dogs, falling over at one point, I decide to stick with the bus. My colleague at work does bike in and shows me his bruises where he came off, so I was probably wise not to cycle. He also came off his bike in flood water on Friday.

In the evening it’s dog training where the Lad is well rampant.

Then disaster strikes. No sooner had L commented on the number of races we have booked for next year and started worrying that one of us would get injured when one of us did. So as I’m running the nine or so miles from work to Risley on Thursday evening she is having to cancel her attendance at a new Pilates class in Wollaton. Oh dear.

(Thursday 14^th November)

Wash Your Mouth Out

I walk the dogs as L is at the dentist this morning. Afterwards I ask her how the alcohol lecture went. Apparently she didn’t get one, so it must just be that looks like an alcoholic. She did get the lecture about not washing your mouth out after you’ve brushed your teeth and leaving the toothpaste in there, so that it can continue its good work until it gets to mutate with your lunch.

Dog training is actually on tonight and L goes to her new book club at... wait for it... Waterstones.

(Monday 30^th October)

Renegade Fruit Juice Habit

This morning I arrive for work at 10am, having left home two hours and twenty minutes earlier.

A car had broken down on the A52 near Derby and traffic had backed up all the way back to Bardill’s roundabout, just outside Nottingham. It had also snarled up the slip roads off the M1 and thereby the M1 itself. Quite an achievement.

It was also unnecessary. It was a tiny car which could have been pushed off the road in seconds but instead a police car had put cones round it and sat behind it with all it’s blue lights on.

L is also heading to Derby today, meeting her folks. Good luck with that one.

Shopping is again without a Nectar card. Just how long does it take to replace one?

Then I’m at the dentist where I get lectured on my general health even though the chap has no idea how my general health is. That isn't after all his job. I even get asked the age old question about how many alcohol units I consume per week and whether I am inside the new guidelines. I refuse to answer his questions and I have no idea what this has to do with my teeth.

I am also advised that if I am going to drink fruit juice in the mornings then this should not be done before brushing my teeth but I shouldn’t drink it afterwards either unless it’s through a straw. Life used to be so simple. Apparently it’s all to do with looking after the enamel on my teeth. Although he confirms that the 50 year old enamel on my teeth is fine... despite my current renegade fruit juice habits.

After that I’m relieved to get to dog training.

(Monday 25^th September)

Jetsetting

L is heading up to Stockport today to be scanned and probably other things as part of the Biobank project that we are both enrolled in. They keep nagging me to go as well but I just haven’t got the holiday to fit it in. L combines the trip with a lunch appointment with Daughter for whom it’s a short trip over from Manchester.

Instead I have the delight of the dentist where I see yet another different one who tells me I’m not brushing enough. The last one told me I was over-brushing. He also tells me I need to have them cleaned by the hygienist who isn’t free until January.

After that it’s up onto the hill for a bit of dogging, where’s it’s a tad bracing. We are still back home before L who’s had a long day jetsetting.

(Monday 12^th October)

Fired Up

The knee is trashed again after Sunday’s run. Why the knee and not the calf? I do not understand my own body.

Tonight a rather expensive brush and polish at the dentist, then dog training with a very fired up, hyped up MD. I suppose spending most of yesterday in the car has upped his energy reserves. It seems to have had little effect on Doggo’s though.

(Monday 3^rd November)

Some Sort Of Shape

This morning my aches are aching but everything else is fine, which is an improvement on the post-Outlaw Half situation. L asks if I’m feeling enthused then? Possibly. I even start pondering on some likely autumn half marathons to take in whilst I’m in some sort of shape.

Tonight a very brief trip to the dentist for the annual check-up. The dentist gives my teeth the most cursory of cursory glances from the other side of the room, whilst reading the newspaper and chatting to his nurse or something like that. Then he tells me to hand my credit card in at reception on the way out.

Then a not so brief Committee Meeting. Well actually the Committee Meeting itself is quite brief, it’s the clandestine post-meeting meeting afterwards that drags on a bit and takes another hour.

I then collect the dogs from my parents’ place where they have been entertaining my father for the evening. By taking the dogs out, I’ve enabled L to get in a triple fitness class session, thereby helping her address the problem of being outdone by Daughter.

(Monday 8^th September)

Gnashing Of Teeth

The dentist tells Daughter that she grinds her teeth in her sleep. I’m not sure how he knows this but the enterprising so-and-so tries to sell her a mouth shield for £110. Daughter buys one off Amazon for a fiver. Apparently it’s in very sexy green.

At dog training tonight, Doggo does a full twelve weaves, faultlessly. Not bad for a 91 year old.

(Monday 11^th August)

The Things I Have To Do

Le Daughter is home and we are trying to steer her onto a cheaper living project, so that we can all afford to see her through her Master’s Degree at Manchester University.

This isn’t easy when she needs le full MOT. Le opticians, le dentist, le hairdresser... well that can be cheap and cheerful surely. In fact can’t she have her hair cut really short so that it lasts for the full year?

Anyone for ****** tennis? Sadly the weather looks good, so I won’t be able to get out of it any longer.

I meet L at the tennis centre and we do a dog swap, she's also asked me to slap her if she tries to have alcohol tonight. The things I have to do.

In the end it’s a short game. My opponent turns up pre-injured and collapses in a heap during game 8. We adjourn to the pub.

(Thursday 3^rd July)

Revengeful Mood

England have their first game of Euro 2012 tonight. Not that I’m going to get to watch it. There’s dog training tonight and I have a dog that really does need training. I’ve also managed to get a rare late appointment at the dentist. Funny that, you usually have to book weeks in advance to get an evening appointment, anyone would think there’s a match on or something.

Then, rather frustratingly, the managing director at work announces that he’s going home at four to watch the football, so if anyone else wants to leave early too they can. It’s good to have a boss who’s into these things. Cue mad scramble for the doors, including even non-football fans that see a golden opportunity when it’s offered to them.

Damn, I should have booked the dentist for earlier. I seriously consider ringing up to try to blag an earlier appointment.

L says I should be concerned because the dentist is Irish and they got a thrashing by Croatia last night didn’t they. Hope he’s not in a revengeful mood.

In the end it’s so quiet; I’m in and out in five minutes and soon off to dog class with Roy’s boys on the radio.

1-1. Not a bad result.

(Monday 11th June)

Pain At The Dentist

I’m doing a recipe for Singapore Noodles tomorrow. So the question in Sainsbury’s is do I go for e-coli ridden beansprouts or not. Obviously I’ll avoid anything German but then you do anyway don’t you, on principle. I’m sure all these health scares are generally over hyped anyway. Although I notice L hasn’t requested I pick up any cucumber this week. Then I realise that we have a tin of beansprouts in the cupboard at home. Nice safe tinned beansprouts, bought a couple of months ago. Sorted.

After work I take the dogs to the dentist. Well I go to the dentist; the dogs sit in the car and wait for me, as we’re on the way to dog class. My teeth are fine by the way, in case you’re wondering. Well I think they’re fine but I was in and out the clinic so quickly and the dentist gave them such a cursory glance and the quickest of quick prods that I’m not sure he could tell himself but at least he’s not going to inflict any pain on me. What’s that? £18? Apart from the pain of the bill that is.

(Monday 6th June)