Thursday 5 December 2019

December 4th, 2019

My son had an orthodontist appointment today; we had hoped it would be to one when his braces were removed, but we have another 12 weeks to go as his "bite" is not quite perfect. I felt a bit sorry for C, as he was hoping they would be removed for Christmas.

When you get braces the nurse takes you into a little room and shows you photos of all the food you can't eat while wearing them as they risk damaging the brace, plus some horror pics of what happens if you drink too many fizzy drinks. 2 years ago we thought C wouldn't be able to enjoy chicken wings, Haribo, or Coke Zero, but he has gradually snuck them back into his diet by being careful. The only thing he misses is chewing gum, which I have deemed much too sticky and not even to be considered. C had been looking forward to buying a big pack of chewing gum when we left the orthodontist, but he must now wait until the end of February.

Straight after the orthodontist we had a dentist visit, quite coincidental but it was good to have a different type of check up. Our dentist confessed he is not an expert on braces but is skilled in implants. As this was my first check up as a private patient, I was subjected to some lovely new investigations, like how much bone I have in my mouth (in case I ever need implants). Apparently I have lots of "torus" (tori?), which are bony growths in the mouth, and I can be harvested for implants if needed. This is reassuring.

Thursday 28 November 2019

November 28th, 2019

Happy Bedfordshire Day!

Yesterday was Lancashire Day, when I always instruct everyone to eat hotpot. Now I discover that my second home county has its day immediately afterwards. Copying is not good Bedfordshire.

I have to think hard about what is great about Bedfordshire.

Lancashire has beautiful countryside, hills, little villages, dry stone walls, sheep, and the seaside. It has its own cheese (several types in fact), pies and puddings, and you can get gravy in chip shops.

Bedfordshire is famed for something called a clanger (not the 1980s TV show), which is like a pasty in the shape of a sausage roll, with two-thirds a savory filling and the last third a sweet filling. I mean, that sounds ingenious. Bedfordshire is also the only double landlocked county in England (take note Bucks, you don't count), so nowhere near the seaside but great in pub quizzes.

I also live in Bedfordshire now, so I guess it has to be OK. And it's 40 mins from central London on the train.

Monday 28 October 2019

Always planning something

It's Monday again (these seem to come around with alarming regularity) and another chance for me to reflect on my weekend.

The clocks went back on Sunday, which was a nice surprise as I had forgotten this was happening. I woke up at 7 am on Sunday feeling thoroughly refreshed and slightly perplexed, until I realised why. I managed to reset the clocks on the microwave and the cooker, which entailed rather a lot of button poking until things flashed in the correct places.

This weekend was another busy one for our family, and I mentioned to R that we hadn't actually spent a weekend together as a family in over a month, due to cub camp, him doing Three Peaks, another Scout camp this weekend, and something else that I have forgotten what it was. Anyway, 4 weekends of spending time away from each other means next weekend we need to do something memorable as a family (we have already discussed going to MK to do some Christmas shopping, which is unheard of for us as we usually favour the last-minute Amazon prime approach to Christmas).

On Friday night I drove R, C and his friend O to Gilwell Park near Chingford in Essex for Scarefest, a Halloween-themed camp for Cubs, Scouts, and Explorers. C and O are Explorers and R is an Explorer leader now. I've never been to Gilwell, so it was nice to experience the place, albeit in the dark. I was slightly worried at the already-quite-high levels of mud, which was on a dry day, and the fact C had only brought one pair of boots with him and no waterproofs (he announced this in the car as we pulled up to drop off). After berating him at length for being an idiot (and in front of his friend, who was bemused and possibly a bit scared of getting a similar telling-off) I left the three of them for the weekend.

On Saturday I received an early-morning message: essential kit had been left behind, could I bring it to camp please? The regulators for the new cadacs had been left behind, which connect the stoves to the gas bottles. So they couldn't make breakfast. I traipsed back to Gilwell with N in tow, with the kit, R's pillow, and a spare pair of boots for C. For my trouble I received a sausage muffin and a cup of tea, so all was not bad. However, it did highlight to me the potential for illegal entry on-site, since I was not challenged while walking through the campsite and there was no security border or official entrance. I made a note to never bring my Cubs to Gilwell for this reason, I couldn't cope with worrying about them wandering off!

N and I decided to go via our friend's cafe on the way home for an early lunch, since we had been made to get up early. We visited Box of Cakes in Stotfold for ice cream waffles and sausage rolls, very nutritious. Then instead of going home, we headed to Boyd Scout campsite in Henlow, because I had planned to recce a walk route for the Cubs in a few weeks. We had a fun 3 mile walk in the rain, finishing at the park and then the pub (Five Bells); decision made that we wouldn't take the Cubs on this walk as it was a bit too far, so I need to recce another route next weekend. We finally arrived home 5 hours after we had left that morning, and it was lovely to get the heating on and our boots off.


Thursday 24 October 2019

Diagnosis

I've started work quite early today as it's half term and I don't need to make packed lunches or shoo my children around the house to get ready. I do love school holidays; we rarely go anywhere, it is just nice to be home and let my kids relax and chill out and sleep a lot. Although today I have booked them both eye tests and hair cuts, so they have to get dressed.

I'm still unwell, it's about 10 days in now and I'm bored of being a bit phelgmy and hot. I can't tell if my hot sweats are due to a resurgence of fever, if the heating is on too high and I'm wearing a jumper,  or if I'm perimenopausal. At age 42 any one of those could be true, although I don't think the heating is on.


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