Tuesday 13 August 2024: Happy dentist

We went out on Sunday to get me a long grabby thing (long-handled litter-picker) so that when I’m walking around the garden, I can easily pick up windfall apples and pears. I had breakfast first yesterday, for a change, then fed the birds, and then I went and grabbed a handful of apples. Only one was worth keeping, and I threw the others into the stingers for the insects to eat. The long grabby thing meant I could retrieve apples from inside the brambles and stingers too, even if most went back again.

I had a lot to do yesterday, with restarting two blogs: THE SECRET SUGARHOLIC and OUR GARDEN THIS WEEK. I also had to write up yesterday’s blog post, and for that I had to get the picture of Blarney Castle off my phone and onto the laptop. I just can’t get the laptop to communicate via Bluetooth, and it’s a relatively new laptop too. So I had to email it to myself and then go and grab it.

First of all, though, I had to plan this week’s schedule and then transfer it to the diary. I just didn’t have time last Monday in the end to do this in advance. So I had to do it yesterday. Next, I created a folder in Scrivener for SECRET SUGARHOLIC and one for OUR GARDEN THIS WEEK. I wrote up yesterday’s SECRET SUGARHOLIC blog, and I played with the template for the OUR GARDEN blog, ending up with the one I started with in the first place.

By dinnertime, I was only as far as yesterday’s blog post, so I wrote that up and posted it while I ate my dinner. Immediately after dinner, I started today’s post. Then I finished brainstorming A DAY AT THE RACES for 12 STORIES IN 12 MONTHS. I started it while we were in Ireland, but didn’t get around to finishing it.

I went into Plottr to work on the full outline of A DAY AT THE RACES, but then my sister asked me if I’d had chance to look out our final Probate statement. I hadn’t. I’ve been chockablock for about 3 weeks. But I had time to squeeze in a quick peek, so went to collect all of the documents. Very quickly I fired off initial observations to my sister, then I had to go to the dentist.

The hygienist was very pleased with me and even said ‘Brill!’ Before she could do a proper ‘deep clean’ she needed to see the bleeding in my mouth reduce to 10% or less. I started out on about 83%. By my next visit I’d got it down to around 56%. And by the visit after that, 43%. But this time, it was down to 14%, and she was happy to proceed. That’s a huge improvement. No wonder I’ve felt like I’ve had a different set of teeth in my mouth!

I booked 2 appointments, so it could be done in 2 halves with anaesthetic, and came home to celebrate with a nice cup of tea and 2 mini chocolate chip muffins. (I know, I know, I may as well have a full-sized one at that rate! But at least I didn’t succumb to the sweets in my car’s glove compartment on the way home…) When I got in, I added both of the appointments to TickTick, and then added the 3 dermatology appointments I thought I’d added ages ago.

I had just one more job to do so I could have a full set of ticks against the day, and that was a quick look at the pre-writing for Act 1 of THE HAUNTED HOUSE HOTEL. I thought I’d already done it, but wanted to check before getting into the writing flow for Act 1. I thought I still had to add in a brainwave or two, but it looked like everything was there and ready to go.

I finished today’s blog post, updated my word-count spreadsheets, and called it a day.