Whole tooth

I have still not cleaned Oliver’s shoes.

However I have cooked burgers and sausages, and some chicken in a peanut sauce of my own making. I liked the peanut sauce very much and had to make an effort not to lick my fingers in an insanitary sort of way. For the interested, it was peanut butter mixed with Worcester sauce, tomato purée, garlic, oil, smoked paprika and salt. It didn’t stick to the chicken in quite as solid a coating as I might have liked but it is pretty good.

Hence I think we are almost ready to go, at least from a dietary point of view. I can now feed us on cooked meats and cheese and crackers every single day, possibly with a side order of vegetables if I get round to them, although there is no guarantee of that. I have a few more things to do and then I can start packing.

I need to clean Oliver’s shoes. In fact all of our shoes need cleaning. This will be a nice job when I get round to it, because it is one that I can do whilst sitting comfortably in the fireside chair with a story playing on my computer.

I am doing very well for stories, as it happens, because Number Two Daughter and Mrs Number Two Daughter have very kindly purchased a stack of the books from my university reading list as a present, because Number Two Daughter said she was very proud of having an educated mother.

I am not very educated just yet because we have only had two classes, although I am trying my best, and I have not been chucked out, which I think is about the best result I can expect.

I am very pleased indeed about the books, because I have practically devoured all of the ones I have bought myself, some of which are brilliant and one or two are so ghastly as to be unreadable. One of them is the sort of modern book written in brief paragraphs with big gaps between them to make the book look thick enough so you think you are getting at least some of your £8.99’s worth.

As it happened I was entirely relieved that it was so blessedly short, because it was painfully tedious, being an outpouring of neurotic whittering about climate change and similar modern preoccupations. You could have more fun going to the theatre for a gender-neutral production of Waiting For Godot.

Anyway, the Number Two Daughters have waded through my reading list and very generously dispatched lots of books in my direction. I am terribly excited for their arrival. Mark is going to have to make a start on my new bookshelves.

I could not think of any suitable way of repaying them, so I sent them an email with my first two bits of Creative Writing attached. It is misfortunate that these are the shoot-yourself miserable ones, but at least they will know I am not wasting my time and am being appropriately creative.

I had to take Oliver to the orthodontist again this afternoon, where we have finally been told all the details of the treatment plan. These were so revoltingly gory that Oliver went white and had to have a little sit down.

He has got to have four teeth removed and his mouth wired up so much that he had better not walk under a magnet. His  gums go up and downhill like the new skateboard ramps in the park in Windermere, and will have to be flattened out.

Fortunately, modern dentistry is a lot more humane than dentistry used to be, and he will not need a horrible plastic plate in his mouth, but it is not going to be very nice

He has decided that he is going to get it all done, which I think is being very brave. I am not sure that I would be able to face it if I were in his place. In fact, I am feeling a bit too cowardly even to think about it very much.

Oliver is made of stern stuff. He will grin and bear the treatment, and then afterwards he will grin and bare beautiful straight teeth.

I know that was an awful pun but once I had thought of it I couldn’t not use it.

It will take two and a half years.

By the time it is finished he will be old enough to vote.