Nothing but the tooth

This week I've had two visits to the dentist, one planned, one not. On Monday I went to get repairs to a front tooth I broke a bit off before Christmas; it was the same bit that I broke off in Britain in 2006, but the dentist had no record of fixing it (he did). Anyway on Thursday, while flossing to clear what I thought was muck stuck between two teeth, I managed to remove part of a filling - one that was only done in November. Luckily they were able to fit me in on Friday afternoon and, because it was a repair to recent work, it was fixed for nothing.

Early in the week I went to LE's to set up her Internet connection. Unfortunately we didn't have quite the right plugs and sockets, but after a profitable visit to my work tech friends I managed to get what was required. Last night I returned and got not only her net connection working, but also the wireless setup which allows her to have the iMac away from the phone line. Everything was working when I left, but I got a frantic call this morning to say that it had stopped working. I went up later today and managed to get everything working OK. She's having fun.

In the middle of the week B&P and I went with LE to Rumi for a meal to celebrate her birthday. The food was very tasty and we had a very enjoyable evening.

Thursday and Friday were stinking hot but a change arrived Friday lunchtime which made last night much easier to bear. More to come, though.

Duelling altos

Voyage to diabetes (sooner or later)

Today I went to the health centre for my semi-annual round of blood letting. They test for a range of conditions including cholesterol and blood sugar levels. For the latter the doctor had arranged for do a glucose tolerance test which required me to give a series of samples over a couple of hours to help determine the severity of my insulin resistance.

As fasting is required I had no breakfast and got to the health centre around 8.30. First I picked up my month's supply of Lipitor before sitting down to wait for the pathology nurse to call me. This didn't happen until 9; after she had done a pin-prick test to make sure my blood-sugar wasn't too high she then extracted the first lot of samples. Then I drank a small bottle of a glucose drink (tasted just like flat lemonade) before returning to the waiting room.

An hour later she called me back and removed another lot of blood (from the other arm this time), then I went back to the waiting room. Luckily I had a magazine and my radio/mp3-player to keep me amused.

During this hour I made a follow-up appointment with my doctor to discuss the results of all the tests - unfortunately not until the week after next. At the end of the hour I returned for the final extraction after which I was free to eat at last.

I had a meal in town before wandering in the heat (hot again, alas) up to work.

Phew, it's 2008

Yesterday, the last day of 2007, was shockingly hot (41?) and while it was beautifully cool at work, the inevitable time came when I had to go home. And it was home to a little hot-box; though not quite as hot as before I got the blinds for the back windows.

B came for dinner - I cooked a rather nice curry (from a new source of pastes which I will try again) and found some raspberries for dessert. We drank a nice bottle of bubbles B brought. As there was nothing to watch on the TV I broke out the DVD of the Hamburg Meistersinger from 1970, which turned out not to be bad at all (well act one, anyway).

B left reasonably early and around 11 I decided to go to bed but unfortunately the combination of parties in the park, parties in the houses behind, the heat and the trains (running all night) conspired to deprive me of all but a couple of hours sleep. Consequently today at work seemed to last a week - mind you, I wasn't the only person suffering from sleep deprivation.

Today was hot again, but luckily my week at work kept me inside until the change arrived and this evening is quite pleasant.

I'm afraid I've been very slack with this blog lately and will try to be a bit more regular this year.

A happy new year to my readers (both of you).