I didn't much take to the dental hygienist. It must be hard to do that job, and have your customers like you, when you are scraping around inside their mouths and quizzing them about their hygiene and dietary habits, but I didn't warm to her. She was a seriously overweight and flabby person, and I always find it difficult to take health messages seriously from medical personnel who are themselves patently unhealthy, but mainly I never trust health workers who use the word 'pop', or refer to everything as 'little' to make it seem less threatening. Just go behind the screen and pop your things off. Or in the hygienist's case, I'm just going to pop this tube under your arm. 'Put' is a perfectly good English word, and I'd rather they used it. And 'little' is a relative term. Today's dental tools looked a perfectly normal size to me. Small compared to a shovel, or a pick axe, but not otherwise 'little'.
Apparently my enamel is showing slight signs of thinning due to acid erosion. An apple a day, which we thought was so good for us, is all the while dissolving our teeth. The hygienist suggested it would be a good idea if I were to drink my morning glass of apple juice through a straw, to prevent it coming into contact with my teeth. I wasn't convinced that was going to help, and anyway thought that life was too short, but it seemed easier just to agree with everything she said than try and argue with somebody who said 'pop' and 'little', and was about to put sharp pointed instruments in my mouth.
She tried to make me look at the plaque on my teeth in a hand mirror. I looked at them for a bit, but I'm really not very keen on peering into mouths, including my own, so got out of that by explaining that I couldn't see clearly that close to wearing my distance glasses. This was a slight exaggeration, but by then I'd seen enough gums for one morning.
I don't mind switching to a toothpaste that replaces enamel, when the current one runs out, but I'll have to see how I do cleaning my teeth before breakfast instead of afterwards. My teeth feel so much in need of cleaning after I've first eaten in the morning that when I used to have a job involving business travel I amassed quite a collection of toothbrushes and odd tubes of toothpaste, bought at Euston and King's Cross because I absolutely had to clean my teeth, or go mad. Maybe having a little swill around with some water after the muesli and apple juice will do the trick, but perhaps it won't. I am pretty sure I won't floss them every day. It's difficult enough finding time to do the Pilates exercises, and I can see the benefit of those because I do have a dodgy back, whereas I don't have gum disease.
Then I did some last minute holiday shopping at the Clacton Factory Outlet. No, still not a bikini, but a lightweight breathable walking jacket in an inoffensive shade of green, waterproof trousers and boot socks. With any luck that should ensure nice weather, but I am determined to look at Howick and Cragside whether it's raining or not. The jacket isn't such good quality as my old one, and I wouldn't trust it for fell walking in winter, but my old one, bought in a sale in a camping shop in Ludgate Hill thirteen or fourteen years ago, when I was in need of retail therapy one lunchtime, became my work coat for several years, and has so much mud on the front that while it would be fine at the top of Scafell I would be embarrassed to walk into a pub wearing it. And in truth, I'm not sure it's as waterproof as it used to be. The new jacket is a small man's one. The sleeves are a tiny bit long on me, but I appreciate the extra length in the body, and the subdued colour. The ladies' coats came in a lurid array of pinks and purples, but when I'm walking in a beautiful landscape I want to blend in, not stand out like a traffic light.
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