Good as new

School today went pretty well. Caleb caught up on the Maths worksheet he missed yesterday quite willingly – I didn’t press it at all, but he voluntarily did it. His attitude was much better, but also it was an easy day with nothing of any particular difficulty to do. After our tenzees we did science, which is always an experiment on Friday, and today’s was very interesting in that we made a solenoid – it’s to do with electromagnetism, in case you’re wondering! Then, using the solenoid, we made a little railway station, where the signal goes up because one end is pulled down by a threaded needle. All very exciting. We finished school quite late, and then I had my dentist appointment at 2.15. I had to walk up the road, leaving the boys at home on their own, as Nick was out at Head o’Wain again doing the path. I got there well before the time, but still had a bit of a wait anyway. The appointment was a big one – I was in the chair for an hour. Let me just clarify what I mean by having my tooth filled: it’s not a tiny hole which needed filling. Half the tooth had broken off, because it’s root filled and therefore brittle. So the last locum battled to get a filling to stay because there’s not much to really hold it in place. So this new dentist, having seen how easily a regular filling fell out, decided to use pins to hold it there – kind of like the metal supports in a concrete block. There was a lot of injecting and drilling and filling. He used one of those big drills that rattle the skull – actually felt rather like he was drilling into my skull. Eventually the filling was all in place, with FOUR pins! Then he had to file it down, and every time I opened my eyes during the break between drilling, I could see a puff of tooth (filling) dust pouring out my mouth. Nick had arrived while I was in the chair, on his way home from the country, to fetch me. He had quite a long wait, but I was really glad to see him. Interestingly, after all that work, my face didn’t have the usual dentist numbness. I think because he injected quite shallowly, in various places, instead of one deep one. So although I couldn’t quite smile properly, it wasn’t nearly as bad as in the past. Nick and I went past our house and down to town, to get a DVD for last night and a few nibblies to go with it. By the time we got home the boys had been alone for nearly two hours, but they were happy; hadn’t burned the house down or anything.