(L)EEK!!!

This is all that is left of a rather large leek I have been chomping on - now and then - throughout the past week. (Finely chopped leek, sprinkled liberally onto a layer of old cheese and enclosed within wholewheat bread. Yummy!).

The only trouble with raw leeks (and old cheese too, for that matter...) is that the memory of them lingers on in the mouth for days....and days....and days..

Not normally a problem - unless your partner complains(!) or, a large piece of enamel breaks off the back of one of your few remaining upper molars - and you have to promptly visit the dentist!

That latter thing has happened (of course!) - and leek addicted Geri has now emailed said dentist for an emergency 'please squeeze-me-in' appointment; and is regularly checking the in/email box for a reply.

In the meantime, toothpaste and mouthwash are being regularly and anxiously employed - and the old gums and tongue are quite sore with all the extra attention!

That'll teach me.

Trouble is, I can still taste and smell that leek! Have heard that parsley helps extinguish the odour of garlic but I don't have any readily available - and anyway, it probably doesn't work on leeks? There are plenty of dandylion leaves along the hedgerows though....so perhaps I'll give those a try. Although, they might not work either - and knowing my luck, will also stain the teeth bright green!

Just imagine the dentist's shock, when I open my mouth and he stares down into that green, evil smelling pit.....! Aarrgghh!!

Meanwhile, the old tongue is being irresistibly and continually drawn to the jagged cavity in the back of that molar - and is poking itself ragged! If this doesn't put me off raw leeks for the rest of my life - don't know what will.

(L)eeek!!!!!

ZWIJNPEST!

Don't know whether to blame this ridiculous looking pink creature I found lurking around - whilst clearing up the grandkids' toy box last Wednesday - but with mounting trepidation the list of today, includes:

Chills; coughing; very sore throat; horrible pain in back of neck; thumping head; aching all over, sore skin and runny nose.

Could of course be just a bad cold, but considering what happened last winter - when I felt ill but ignored it and carried on till I broke(!) - am now going to dive into bed and dose myself into a long healing doze. Read about that once in a James Herriot book (he was a Yorkshire vet'), how he put a 'sick sheep into a deep sleep' - Lor'.. don't say that fast! You'll lose your dentures - and when it woke up after 3 days it was cured! Brilliant stuff.

So ta-ta for now and take extra care when clearing out boxes and cupboards. Never know what might be lurking there.. My mother found a scorpion once, but that was when she was billeted in India during W.W.II..... (another time, another tale).

love and stuff,

Geri xx

TEETHING PAINS

An elderly neighbour of mine is having difficulties with her dentures. Every time she laughs, they drop out of her mouth, which makes her laugh even more and sets the rest of us off, putting the entire floor in danger of being littered with false teeth!
Fortunately it is a predicament I have been able to avoid up until now – not having any dentures - but the whole situation puts me in mind of an event in early childhood that traumatized the living daylights out of me and preordained me never to become a dentist!

When I was about three, a neighbour of ours, a certain Mrs. R., who for some strange reason I had renamed Mrs. Football, was feeling poorly - and so mother and I stopped by on our way to the shops, to see if there was anything we could fetch for her. I remember tiptoeing after mother into a strange bedroom - and almost fainting with horror at the sight of the usually quite pretty Mrs. Football, with her mouth all sunken in - and her teeth and gums and the whole roof of her mouth in a glass beside her bed! It was beyond my infantile comprehension. She must be in agony!
But why wasn’t mother screaming as loudly as me and rushing me out of there?! Why was she pocketing Mrs. Football’s shopping list and picking me up and hanging me over the bed to kiss the poor suffering lady farewell…..oh no, no....help..help!

The gaping, sunken mouth slobbered over my cheek and… the rest is lost within the black and bottomless depths of a part of my psyche that is still three years old and getting dragged back across the road to change her ‘disgusting, wet knickers’ and have a cold wet cloth slapped on the back of her neck…

Toothless people don’t scare me anymore now of course – but if I ever have to give up what natural teeth I have left, I vow - on the memory of poor Mrs. Football - that I will never, never, never let my young grandchildren see me without my dentures in! Although of course, they are growing up in a completely different world to the one I grew up in and might think I look hilarious (?!) Still, it would probably be better not to chance it – there is after all a chronic shortage of dentists nowadays…

THOSE TERRIFYING TEETH

I’ve tried to look after them, I really have – but is there really anything good to say about teeth? From the moment in babyhood when those first tiny ivories penetrate our tender gums, they torment and control our lives: Brush me! Floss me! Avoid too many sweeties (not a chance…) Take me for regular dental checks – and all in the name of avoiding toothaches and bad breath and acquiring a healthy, attractive smile.
Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way for yours truly. My second front teeth came through crossed, requiring an uncomfortable brace - and were not particularly white to start off with. I also had ‘extra teeth’ that needed to be yanked – and in those distant days of yore they actually used GAS to knock you out with! The horror and pain of it all is etched forever on my mind. The black rubber gas mask… nauseating smell… dizziness… feeling of whizzing through a tunnel backwards… and the humility of waking up and discovering I’d wet my knickers! No time to wallow in self-pity though, I’d be too busy throwing up. None of this was unusual for the times. In fact the whole process was considered quite humane. Milk teeth were usually pulled without anesthetic. Believe me - I know!
Oh how often I have envied those fellow citizens genetically endowed with strong, straight, natural pearly whites, while my own ancestors saw fit to curse me with a hodge-podge of brittle, crooked, off-white curiosities. Bah!
For a while, as a teenager I blamed my less than attractive smile on being born just two years after the end of WW 2 (a ‘baby boomer’) to a mother trying to stay healthy on rationed foodstuffs: i.e., eggs, butter, cheese, milk, meat, etc... Then later, as a mother myself, although well fed, I privately but fleetingly attributed my rapidly loosening molars to the arrival of my own kids! How ‘cruel’ (!) I hear you say - but isn’t there an Old-Wives-Tale that predicts something like: ‘Get pregnant - lose a tooth’? Still, that would only account for three molars at best.
No, there’s nothing else for it. I’ll just have to own up. The fact is I was a greedy, lazy child, who grew up with her hand in the cake tin and stole her little brothers’ chocolate bars, toffees and lollies and employed a perfunctory brushing technique at best!
Happily that’s all in the past now. A decent dentist, has put most of my genetic and hygienic dental legacy and transgressions to rights.
As I smile into the mirror today, I see a top row of gleaming white ‘crowns’ and a bottom row of more or less intact natural teeth, which are however a couple of shades less white than the top row - and that is why I said ‘most’ and not ‘all’ has been put right. There remains just one thing left for me to do and I’m really looking forward to it!
I’ve bought a ‘Teeth Whitening Kit’ for my bottom teeth – and I can’t wait to get started!
There are two tubes of jelly like paste: one for the whitening process and one for maintenance. There is also a half-circle shaped lump of transparent plastic, which apparently has to be heated in hot water and then pressed over my own teeth and held in place for a minute or two to allow it to mould to their shape. This phase must be done properly because once heated and cooled the mould cannot be reheated and reshaped…hmm (slight trepidation in pit of stomach). I must then apply some of the whitening jelly into the mould and put it back over my (bottom) teeth and hold firmly in place for twenty minutes. Repeat daily and after three days I should see a remarkable improvement. Lovely! Seems easy enough, even for my extremely un-technical, un-spatial, un-mathematical brain. So here I go! Tra-la!

I’m bleaching my teeth with a home-try kit,
You have to melt the mould to make it fit….(struggle).
I’m bleachin’ me teef wiv a hmm made kit….(slurp),
Ye af te melt de muld te mek it fit….(drool).
‘m bleech’n mi teefs wiv a hmmm mud kit… (splutter).
Y’v tu mul de mdddd… t’ mek it f’tttt…(slobber….choke!)
And it doesn’t!! It doesn’t fit – and I can’t reheat it…. sob!

Nothing else for it but to phone the dentist for a scrape and a polish and hope s/he can fit me in before 2010…..See ya! I’m off to comfort myself with a cuppa… and a very tiny bar of chocolate.