29 July 2020 (Wednesday) - At The Dentist

Being on a rostered day off I wanted to get my current geo-project over and done with, and so a very early start at it made for an early finish.
I then took the dogs for a walk. We went to Orelstone Woods where we met the chap with whom we’d had a run-in a few weeks ago. Rather than waving his dog around like a rag doll (like he did previously) he picked his dog up and tucked it under his arm as he walked past. He grunted “Good Morning” and busied off.
With him gone we had a good walk. The dogs played and ran and straggled as dogs do, and Fudge joined in the chase with Pogo and Treacle. Pogo and Treacle are really good to Fudge; when he chases them you can see them slow down so he can keep up, and when he loses interest they speed up again.
It was mid-morning before I got to peer into the Internet.

Amazon had given me a three months free trial access to Amazon music. I won’t be taking up that offer. They also suggested I might like to buy a book from them that I had already bought from them. Greg Williams (?) and Prateek Sinha (?) had both asked to by my chum on LinkedIn (does anyone *do* anything on or with LinkedIn?)
I also saw that my subscription to Project GC was about to expire, so I renewed it. It’s a rather useful thing to have when rummaging under a film pot is what floats your boat.
I ordered more food for the pond fish. Using the “order again” option I could be sure of getting the right thing, and the stuff is now a pound cheaper than it was in April. I saw that as something of a result.

I wrote up some CPD, then spent a little while on a geo-jigsaw puzzle before going down the road to the dentist. Last week they’d phoned me to cancel my appointment. When I told them that I wasn’t going to pay them for appointments they weren’t keeping they suddenly reinstated my appointment for me. They phoned me yesterday afternoon to confirm the appointment, and then phoned again half an hour later to cancel. When I complained they offered me an appointment with another dentist. When I told them that I didn’t care who I saw they were somewhat amazed.

I walked down the road to the dentist to find the place had a notice on the door saying that they were closed on the advice of the British Dental Association. Just as I finished reading and was about to come home so the door opened. The work experience girl came out (in *very* loose fitting surgical scrubs, full face mask and visor) and asked what I wanted. I told her I thought I had an appointment; she went in, got my notes and conducted the pre-examination interview in the street outside the surgery for all the world to see and hear. Mind you I wasn’t complaining; the loose-fitting surgical scrubs didn’t keep much secret. There was a dodgy five minutes when she measured my temperature as being at fever-pitch. It might have been brought on by the grandstand view I had of her rather epic unbridled chest (in all its glory), but was more likely to have been the result of her using a contactless thermometer in bright sunshine. Covering up to get a little shade brought the temperature down. She could have done with covering up her chest too, but I said nothing.

She then took me through to see the dentist. Everyone was in full disease-containment garb, and the dentist took maybe a quarter of the time they usually take rummaging in my gob before telling me I needed a filling, I needed to make another appointment, and he said he would arrange to have me escorted to the receptionist (presumably I couldn’t be trusted to walk ten yards). As I waited for escort, so the dental nurse methodically scrubbed everything with which I had been in contact. However she did not touch the overhead lamp the dentist uses to light up people’s cake-holes.
Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a blood scientist!) to realise that when the dentist rummages in my gob then adjusts the light, he is transferring whatever is in my gob to that light. And then when the next patient is in the chair, he then transfers whatever he put on that light into their gob.

I got taken to the receptionists who were wearing their face masks as though they were some kind of necklace. I tried to make an appointment, but was told that they didn’t know what dentists (if any) were working this week, and someone would phone me by the end of the day on Friday. Probably.
I smiled underneath the mask I had to wear; I’ve often thought about going to another surgery as they can be rather useless., But being just down the road from home puts them in a very convenient location, and I wonder how many other dental practices have as impressive chests on wanton display.  

I came home and spent the rest of the afternoon ironing whilst watching episodes of “The Young Offenders”.
"er indoors TM" then boiled up a very good bit of dinner which we scoffed whilst watching the final of “Bake Off: The Professionals”. We washed it down with a rather good bottle of plonk.
I think I should go to bed before I fall asleep…

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