I was harassed by [tag-tec]Villeneuve[/tag-tec]’s village idiot today in the post office.  Even after he realised I was English he would not leave me alone, standing in my space so I had to keep moving, repeating his sentences, pulling up his grubby T-shirt as he was warm and smelling like he could do with a good bath.  He had come in behind me and as there were 3 customers in front, I had to endure this for quite a while.  When it was at last my turn, he promptly stepped in front of me and got served first.  This, actually, was probably not a bad thing for me but I was surprised the Post Master did not make any comment.  Perhaps he thought it best to keep this local sweet. 

I’ve not had a good week after my visit to the dentist.  The swelling has gone down considerably but I am still unable to chew on that side of my mouth.  I’ve felt quite rotten from the effects of the abscess and the side effects of the antibiotics.  But today I felt much better and actually did some gardening and tidied the garage.  The weather has been fine during the daytime with heavy rain early evening.  That’s good as it means I do not have to water my allotment which I planted with veg last week.  I have covered the whole patch up with some “voile” to stop the grasshoppers eating everything.  Due to the plague we had last year, there are millions of them everywhere but they are much smaller this year and all this heavy rain should kill some off, I hope. 

Most of our [tag-tec]garden birds[/tag-tec] seem to have deserted us.  Food is plentiful and they are probably up the mountain nesting.  We have a couple of sparrows (the rest of the group must be up in the village having families), 3 jays one of whom is very tame now, chaffy of cos, and the two baby crows.  We have to shut the shutters in the computer room and the downstairs back bedroom as they were waking us up really early pecking on the glass.  They still visit in the mornings but are not quite so noisy, and it seems they are venturing further afield each day.  Although one is grey and other black, we believe they are both males, according to their behaviour.  It seems strange that the parents seem to have just deserted them, especially as this is usually their patch, although I did see a third one in the garden the other day.  Had mum come back to check up on them?

We also have deer in our field, seen early one morning after having been woken up early with tooth ache and Chris saw one at dusk last night too.  This evening we saw her again rifling through our compost heap but she soon spotted us and was off.  Also we have finally seen our two lerots.  We were not sure if they were still living in the black bin liner on the top shelf but Chris caught them out the other night leaving on their nightly foray.  I was surprised last year’s baby is still with the mother.  Perhaps she will throw him out if she has another youngster this summer.

My appointment yesterday for the dentist was at 2pm and despite the French habit of always being late, I thought that perhaps I had better be punctual this time.  Well, I arrived before M. Semet who came back from his lunch break in his leisure wear and then quickly changed into his ‘scrubs’.  I asked him what the procedure would be and gathered he would be going down into the root which meant another deep root filling (this tooth had previously had one).  On Monday I had asked for an injection but as he said I didn’t need one I assumed that today would be the same, and sure enough, as he poked down my tooth with a barbed needle all was okay until he neared the bottom and the area where the abscess was.  He needed to see how far down into the tooth he was advancing each time and took several pictures with his portable X-ray machine which was then shown immediately on his computer.  It started to hurt a little, then a lot until I was groaning and thinking just get me out of here, I don’t care if I end up having this tooth pulled.  He applied some anaesthetic in droplet form and was soon finished thank God cos I don’t think I could have took much more and I have a high pain threshold.  He then filled it in but I am still obviously minus the top of a tooth and will wait to see, when I see my own dentist, what will happen next. 

M. Semet commented that my English dentist was “excellente”.  I thought, he’s also a lot gentler and would never have let me go through that pain.  The nurse gave me a mouth wash that was also meant to help with the pain but by the time I left, the whole left side of my face was throbbing added to that was severe stomach ache, a side effect of the antibiotics, not something I usually suffer from.  Luckily Chris had come with me and gone shopping during my appointment and I urged him to drive straight to the pharmacie where I could get some special anti-inflammatory pain killers that M. Semet had prescribed for me.  He had told me as I left that he hoped he had saved the tooth but as you can imagine, by that time I did not care.  Back home I had to lie on the couch for the rest of the day, hot water bottle pressed to my tummy, covered up with the hibernator and feeling quite sorry for myself.  Chris reckons one has to ask for an injection, as the same had happened to him 3 years ago, but his had been much worse, still having a nerve in the tooth.  I suppose not having anaesthetic meant a cheaper bill as today’s cost was only 41 euros.  Add to that Monday’s charge, this treatment only came to about 42 pounds.  [tag-tec]French dentists[/tag-tec] must be subsidised by the health authority.  This would have cost far more in England, even at a National Health dentist.  I also had prescription bills of 17 euros but I shall probably not bother to claim this back as I will only receive 75% plus a bank charge so would probably end up with about 25 pounds.  Put that against the bother of completing a “Fueille de soin” and finding my nearest health insurance office, I just don’t think it’s worth it knowing how the French systems works.

M. Semet was very charming tho’ and when I asked him where in Scotland he was going, he said first Edinburgh and then to Carnoustie to watch the open.  I asked him if he was going to play and he said yes with his friends until he realised my little joke and laughed.  Apparently he is golf crazy and considers the course up at Montgenevre to be far too inferior so travels to Turin every Tuesday to play rounds there.