What faces you in the dentist’s chair?

Today was the day for my 6 monthly dental check. I was running late and the internal critic was having a field day, “You can’t be late for the dentist” until somehow like the radio I shut it off and went into some zone with the air conditioner. I picked up Ciara along the way who delayed her relay by minutes, she should have been out on the drive waiting for me. I was 6 minutes late.
I have what we call round here ‘a lovely’ dentist. He is much easier than the hygienists. The two he formally had were trained by the Armed Services and although working in civilian life I found their manner to be still stuck in military life. When I had enough of the first one I requested the second one when I had enough of the second one I was lucky a new one came.
Each time I would pay them a visit it was like have a confession with a priest. I was never cleaning properly, flossing correctly and so forth. One day I said, “You know I value my teeth, I floss every day I brush twice a day I spent a fortune in Harley Street to get the best treatment yet I have not heard you say one positive thing. Could I ask from here on in that you just do what a hygienist does and make no comment.”
The agreement lasted until it broke and as I said thankfully another hygienist came along. I mean I pay to see the hygienist I don’t pay to be criticised, do you want me here or not?
I snuck this photo while a waited for the hygienist today. Upstairs in the dentist’s chair, Wimbledon was blasting from a TV screen attached to the ceiling whereas downstairs in the hygienist couch there was a map of the world.
Curiously when I have in the past undergone root canal treatment or some other road works of the mouth I developed a technique to take my mind off the drilling. I would think back to my first holiday and then recall each holiday since so perhaps the Map of the World is a good prompt.
So my mind would go to our first family the Isle of Man (IOM). I was about 3 and all I remember of that holiday was a lighthouse, a peacock and a dangerous looking lift in the hotel. My second family holiday was to a Butlins holiday camp in Ayr, Scotland. I remember the Dodgems and the talent show in which I sang a song from school. There was then a break in holidays as my parents went their separate ways. Holiday resumed a few years later with ‘a single parent holiday’ to a caravan in Kilkeel, County Down.
I think that was the last family holiday with the Boy’s Brigade (BB) providing annual camp holidays for the next four years to Pwehli in North Wales, Tollymore Forest, County Down, back to the IOM and the most exotic adventure to Hyeres in the South of France.
School then took over with a trip to Switzerland and another to France leaving the last to the Army Cadet Force with a camp to Redford Barracks in Edinburgh. If I had the time there would be a story to tell on some of these though perhaps for another day.
You may have guessed by the time I remembered all these holidays chronologically the drilling would have ceased and I would be asked to gurgle ( the grammar check wants to put in gargle) and spit.
See you tomorrow, hopefully,
g.
PS if you were wondering about snuck see below

