26 March, 2011

Music, language and teeth

Went to QEH last night to hear the Bach B Minor Mass - all soloists, no choir as such. The women sounded a bit under-powered. Also bought myself a lovely blue dress from Cos and a stiff green skirt. My new look is gradually taking shape...

Just waiting to start my first ever Skype Chinese lesson. Hope technical difficulties do not interrupt transmission.

Also got an inlay on one of my bottom left molars in the continuing saga of me and my teeth - remember to brush your teeth, kids!

11 March, 2011

Titanium

I went to the dentist on Tuesday.

He asked me if I'd decided whether to go for a bridge or an implant with my upper left molar. As it happened, just the day before I'd been reading in the Telegraph about how implants are better because they stop your jaw from deteriorating, although they are more expensive, so I asked him to confirm that.

'Didn't they talk you through that when you had your last implant?' he said.

'No. I didn't think I had any implants,' I said.

'Of course you do,' he said. 'Look at your X-ray.'

I looked. Indeed there appears to be a large screw in my jaw.

'Huh. You'd think I would have noticed that,' I said.

'You must pay more attention,' he said. 'Now for today's procedure, I'm going to have to use electricity to stop your gums from bleeding. I have to ask this: do you have a pacemaker?'

'No,' I said. 'I don't know. Maybe I do.'

'Stop that,' he said.

He then proceeded to drill too close to my root, skirting around my pain threshold most distressingly.

That wasn't a good day.

05 March, 2011

Byzantium Novum

I have found my spiritual home.

Spring!

Hooray, it is officially Spring, the first day of the year so far that has been warm and dry enough for me to get into the garden, so I have started work again on the path that I've been planning in my front garden. Homebase tomorrow!

Had to go into town today to get Larry a white leotard as the only dancewear shop in south London said the Fancy Footwork hordes had already descended on their shop and stripped it bare of white leotards. Found just the thing in Capezio in Endell Street, so now we know where to go for all our dancewear emergencies. Lunch at Cafe de Hong Kong - belly pork and perserved mustard - yum!

Had an altercation with a security guard in the Boots on Trafalgar Square. Should probably not go in there again for a year or so, which since I've avoided going into that Boots for the first 46 years of my life, should not be too difficult.

Am looking for a heavy duty loo brush - the kind with wire wool on the end. Do they exist or is it just in my fervid imaginings?

Just started watching Big Bang Theory. I really empathise with Sheldon.

Working my way through the Everyman PG Wodehouse - currently on A Gentleman of Leisure.

Hitting the kids with 16 minute blasts of maths. I'm trying to rewire their brains into maths brains while they're still young and pliable.

Nighty night!

04 March, 2011

Busy busy busy

Goodness, I'm tired. Either I'm getting old or I'm coming down with something. Thank God it's Friday. I got home only to find there was nothing to eat except tomato sauce with giant pasta tubes. I hate tomato sauce pasta - it makes me feel like an impoverished Italian peasant. But LSS had made it because Grace I-Don't-Like-This McDiarmid had come over for a play date. So I ended up eating toast and Marmite and left-over rocket salad and a hunk of corned beef I found in the fridge. Was it for this the flesh grew tall?

Went to Larry's parent-teacher meetings on Thursday. Needn't have bothered. The teachers could barely fill out each 5 minute slot. Once they'd finished saying, she's doing very well, nothing to improve, needs to speak up more in class, the conversation was over. Her maths is terrible though. She understands it, just makes loads of careless mistakes in tests. I'm making her do 30 minutes of maths practice every day. Tiger Mothers Rule OK!

Busy weekend ahead as the girls are both in Coppelia at the New Wimbledon Theatre. Must spend Saturday hunting down a white leotard for Larry in Putney. Why do they always tell us these things at the last minute? And Curly has put in a request for gammon steaks and fancy mash that she found in some free Waitrose recipe book for her Saturday lunch. I'm barely going to have any time to force the kids to do extra maths. Maths! maths! maths! that's what built the empire!

I've been trying in vain all week to sign up to learn Chinese online from some outfit in Beijing. The guy keeps trying to Skype me either when I'm at work or in the middle of the night. This does not bode well for their organisational abilities.

Got my bonus letter today. Good. I can turn the heating back on now.