Drill down

I need to start this blog entry with a warning, and not because a very quiet week of no particular dramatic impact might have an ossifying effect on the unwary. No, the warning is for those odontophobia sufferers among my small but discerning readership who may want to skip to Wednesday and avoid the details of my latest trip to the dentist.

You knew that this visit was going to be particularly critical one as I had instructions from Claudia that I needed to start taking antibiotics on Monday evening, the day before I was due for treatment. You may, like me, have wondered how this was to be done in the absence of a prescription and with only a text message telling me the name. The answer is that you just ask the chemist, who pops into her dispensary and returns with a packet of twelve capsules. As easy as that, and at considerably less cost than a prescription. Indeed, they were somewhat cheaper than the branded flu treatments that, like painkillers, are only obtainable at pharmacies here; something to be aware of next time one of us comes down with a sniffle. Remind me, what is the Italian for ‘superbug’ again?

As my appointment wasn’t until 11.45 on Tuesday morning, this gave me time to squeeze in a lesson with Massimo, fresh from a successful weekend at the Florence food fair, and our regular Tuesday morning shop. This was not without its controversy, however, when the fiercely efficient lady behind the checkout queried my bag of Fuji apples. I checked the display and assured her they were as labelled, which she accepted though she seemed to think the shade a bit dark for Fuji. Such is the power of a morally rigorous upbringing that I still felt guilty as we packed our bags despite being 100% in the right.

I arrived at the dentist in good time, which was not really necessary as by the time I was called in they were running almost an hour late. This gave me plenty of time to build anxiety at what lay ahead, even though I knew I was in good hands. These hands were not, this time, those of Claudia but of her colleague, Carlo, as the surgical aspect was more his speciality. Those of a nervous disposition should look away now, but if you have a forensic interest in these things the procedure was as follows.

Firstly, Carlos extracted a tooth on the right side of my mouth, it being beyond saving due to an infection in the roots. This happened quite quickly, and as he had numbed my jaw and then anaesthetised the area around the tooth with two further injections, it was quite painless. He then suited himself up, as if about to enter a nuclear reactor, for the next phase, the extraction being only the start. He had to prepare the area for a future implant once the wound has healed. This, again, was painless, though the sound and the vibration of him drilling into my jawbone was something of a new sensation but preferable to the next step which did cause me to wince. This was when he used what looked like a fine fish hook, but was in fact a needle, to sew up the wound, an operation that required a seemingly inordinate amount of stiches considering its size.

After all this, which actually took less than an hour, Claudia appeared to check that I was all right and to tell the nurse to give me another icepack in addition to the one I already had pressed to my swollen jaw. She took me to her office where she gave me a list of dos and don’ts and advised me to take it easy for the next couple of days, then waved me on my way.

Whilst it was easy to follow her instructions to rest for the remainder of that day, it was a bit more difficult on Wednesday when I had five lessons, starting with Massimo at 7.30 a.m. and finishing with Rocco and Laura at 7.00 p.m. It didn’t seem to do me any harm, though, and after a quiet Thursday the swelling was more or less gone by Friday, as was Mr Mancini as it was his last lesson before he left yesterday for a week in Japan. He showed me the proposed schedule that he had received from his importer there and it allowed very little downtime to savour the sights. Nor did he hold out much hope of savouring the local food either, as everyone is keen to give him pasta.

Which takes us again to the weekend and again a quiet, stay-at-home one. Stephen made the most of the continued fine weather to make headway in the lotto, spending both afternoons clearing away weeds accumulated there over the winter. The weather also prompted us to resurrect the fly curtain for the front door. This is, perhaps, a trifle previous, but with having to constantly open and close the door for Harry and Bella as they wander in and out during the morning as they try to decide whether or not it is hot enough to sprawl on the terrazzo, it seemed a pragmatic solution. I suppose you could say that we should just ignore them or make them stay in or out, but as the saying goes: why keep a dog and not do everything possible to make his (or, in our case, their) live(s) as comfortable as possible despite the inconvenience to yourself.