08:00 Lois and I wake up feeling tense. We've got an appointment with our dentist at lunchtime: it's the first time for me since January 2020 because of the pandemic. Lois had an appointment about 6 weeks ago, so it's not such a strange thing for her to see a dentist, but she's tense as well, because she's expecting to be faced with signing up to some big bills for crown(s) and/or bridge(s) - yikes!
What to do this morning, though, because we don't have to leave for the dentist's till about 11:45 am? We decide to have our shower, as normal, then to telephone our order for next week's groceries from Budgens, the local convenience store, and then to sit around looking miserable for the rest of the morning haha!
11:45 We drive off wearing face-masks, and park in Westdown Gardens near the town's cricket club, 5 minutes walk from the dentist's surgery.
We put on disposable gloves and press on the dental surgery's doorbell - we're not going to risk getting bell-presser germs haha!
The receptionist comes down and takes our temperature by pointing a temperature-gun at our foreheads at a distance of about 12 inches - isn't modern technology wonderful?!!! Then she gives us some hand-gel to rub on our plastic gloves. After that we can go up to the waiting-room and sit in two of the three okay seats, which are set in 3 corners of the room so socially distanced.
the receptionist's desk in happier times: no protective screens!!!
the waiting room in happier times - seating where you could really
get close to your dentist - Daria in this case (sob, sob!!!). Seating which has
now been ripped out and replaced by 3 single chairs in 3 of the room's corners.
I get examined by Daria, our dentist, while Lois gets "hygiened" by Ursula, the hygienist, and then we swap over. It's 16 months since my teeth were looked at, so I'm fearing the worst, but strangely enough, Daria doesn't find anything wrong. "Thank you, God!", as Basil Fawlty once memorably said.
Daria in happier times - "Make mine a large one!" haha!
Lois, however, has to sign up for a crown, which will cost about £750 - yikes!!!! But that'll have to wait till September. She hands in the old crown, which will be useful, Daria says.
13:00 Lois and I come home and collapse in a heap. Sudden release of tension - my god! This is the most human contact inside a building (apart from with Lois haha!) that I've had for nearly 14 months, so quite traumatic.
20:00 We watch some TV, an interesting documentary on how Cold War events were reflected at the cinema. This first episode covers the period from the end of WW2 to the 1960's more or less.
This programme isn't as enjoyable as we thought it would be, because it's just a brief bit about each of a series of films that Lois and I haven't seen or even heard of in many cases - damn! It is interesting, however, to see how quickly the mood changed towards Russia from thinking of them as our ally in 1945, to them being our deadly enemy after just a couple of years, or less, even.
We see Churchill giving his "An iron curtain has descended across the continent" speech in March 1946, three weeks before I was born, and only a couple of years later there's a cold war espionage film that comes out with a title echoing Churchill's iconic phrase "The Iron Curtain" (1948), set in Ottawa, Canada.
Luckily both Lois and I have seen on TV one of the other films featured tonight: "The Third Man" (1949), set in post-war Vienna and starring Orson Welles, the film that has the iconic theme tune played on the zither by Austrian musician Anton Karas.
Lois tells me that, as an 18-year-old, she saw Anton Karas playing his zither in a restaurant in Bournemouth. She had gone to have a meal there with her cousin Brian and his wife Ruth in 1964, and Karas was there, fresh from Austria and large as life, playing his zither to entertain diners: he played the theme from the Third Man, of course, but also other songs of his, which was nice.
Anton Karas playing his iconic zither
And only 4 years after that incident Lois met me, a very unprofessional autoharp player, and after another 4 years, we got married.
Who would have thought it, eh???? Life's funny like that haha!!!
21:00 We watch a bit more TV, the latest programme in the series "Meet the Richardson", the reality TV-documentary about the lives of married stand-up comics, Jon Richardson and his wife Lucy Beaumont, who live in the quiet town of Hebden Bridge in rural Yorkshire.
An interesting episode tonight, because we finally find out why Jon Richardson isn't very popular as a stand-up comedian. Apparently he doesn't have a lot of funny things happen to him in his everyday life, unlike other comedians. This is because he is so well-prepared for any situation, that nothing ever throws him. We can see how that kind of approach would be a handicap for any comedian, no doubt about that.
Poor Jon !!!!!
What's really interesting to me is that Jon now treats us to a few hints as to just some of the enormous store of things he carries around with him in the boot of his car, in the event of emergencies, and I'm sure there'll be ideas I can copy when I'm next reviewing the contents of our own boot:
A mallet - yes! That's the one thing he's got that we haven't got! But I can quickly put that right, that's for sure!!!
21:30 We go to bed early - zzzzzzzzz!!!!
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