Friday 12 January 2024: Bits n bobs

I think one of the last things to organise on a personal basis is a new dentist for us both. We do have a dentist, in Doncaster. But they were difficult to get to when we lived in Doncaster, and that won’t have improved now we’ve moved to Rotherham. Also, we weren’t over-impressed with the way they treated us, nor with how long it took them to recover from lockdown.

UK dentists taking on new patients are as rare as rocking horse sh!t at the moment. Many of them claim not to have recovered from lockdown, yet so many other business have. Their lists are closed, hardly any are taking on new NHS patients, and even where they once accepted new patients from the same household as an existing patient, they’re not doing that now either.

A few days a go I threw a request up onto our village forum, asking where all the good folk go to see their dentist. One dentist was recommended over and over again, but they’re full and they’re not even taking private patients at the moment, and they have a two-year waiting list. So I did some research into the other four recommendations, and now all we have to decide is whether to go private or on the NHS.

I absolutely hate and detest going to the dentist. The noise one of their drills or grinders makes goes right through my teeth, like when someone scratches their fingernails down a blackboard and makes that screeching noise. (Traditional wooden chalkboards painted black. We never had green ones until those plastic things that rolled around on a roller arrived.)

Also, I’m not a huge fan of pain, and having dental procedures is almost always painful, before, during and after the procedure. Finally, I like to hold onto my teeth and every dentist I’ve ever visited since I was 10 has wanted to remove perfectly healthy teeth. (Note: I still have them ALL. At my age! Apart from one at the very back that broke.)

I’d really sooner have a tattoo, or any other kind of needle than go to a dentist. So while the poet is leaning towards the one that currently says its NHS list is still open, I’m leaning towards the private practice that specialises in nervous patients and includes SEDATION among their procedures. NHS dental fees and prices are not that much cheaper than at private practices.

So sifting through those and checking their websites took a bit of time. I shared the gig list, and prepared for my 2pm telephone interview with SAGA magazine, had my dinner, and turned the mobile phone onto silent. When I opened up a couple of websites I wanted to use to remind me of a few things, I noticed that an Amazon delivery that was due ‘before 10pm’ was now due from 2:45pm – 4:45pm. What’re the odds, eh?

The assistant features editor of the magazine was very prompt. She called me bang on time and we had each other’s undivided attention for 45 minutes…apart from the dog barking once, but he was very good. When we were finished, I found out some additional information for her and sent her the links, along with a thank you email. Then I did a quick whizz around social media and checked emails.

First job of the afternoon then was to take 3,177 words from Substack and transfer them to NOTES FOR WRITERS. I’d allocated only 5,000 words of that to do for January and have already exceeded it. So I changed the 5,000 words to 10,000 words. At this rate, the book will be done in less than three weeks. The Amazon delivery arrived at around 3:15pm.

I was going to write my story for the sci-fi mystery workshop but I had a quick look at the pop-up workshops I have on world building first. Fortunately, one of the workshops was specifically about the world I’d tentatively chosen. I put some jacket potatoes in the oven and while I waited for the poet to come home, I settled down in front of the videos – 10 videos and a prompt.

I made some notes in my sci-fi mystery file and set it to percolate overnight. With the deadline for this story midnight on Sunday, did I write it? Did I meet the deadline? Tune in next week to find out, and have a fab weekend!