sods and bits

Turns out if you want Sky Sports 1 and/or 2 via BT Vision (their TV thing) you have to pay an additional subscription, so there goes that idea :(.

Anyway, this last few weeks I've really been struggling to cover all the stuff I wanted too in the blog. This is something of a turn-around from the usual situation, where I'm struggling to find enough to talk about for all five days.

I therefore thought I'd do a bit of a roundup of some things that are either too old to really talk about or can be quickly summarised. I hope I'm not shooting myself in the foot!

The Weather

One of my pet sayings is that the weather in the UK seems to come with exclamation marks and the early part of this was a classic example.

So we've been bimbling along at a fairly cool range of 15-20 degrees maximum during the day. Not technically shorts weather, but I've been steadfastly wearing them anyway. And then this last weekend there's a sudden change and we bounce up into the high twenties, with the temperature gauge on my car bobbling around the low thirties (all that metal tends to boost the temperature a bit).

Those sorts of temperature are all very nice, but when they happen suddenly, with no chance to acclimatise, I find it a bit unpleasant. Interestingly, though, I think I'm coping with the high temperatures much better now that I've shed some weight. It also gives me more reason to praise my aircon, which has again been giving me a bit of respite in the evenings and helping me get to sleep at night.

Dentists

On Monday I had a long session at the dentists, as I needed two fillings :(.

My teeth seem really susceptible to decay so I've been kinda lucky I've not had need of a filling in a while. Although I have to say I think actually the filling he put in was because one dropped out a while back.

Once I got home I looked in the mirror to see it and to me it seemed to be where I'm sure I'd had a filling a long time ago. And I also specifically remember a time when I was eating and something very hard and crunchy was suddenly in my mouth and the bits I spit out looked like the amalgam they use in fillings. I remember asking him about it at the next check-up I had and he said nothing had changed, but I'm sure it was one that fell out.

Especially given that it was a really big hole and filling he put in - it couldn't have eaten away that much in such a short period of time.

I'm not a huge fan of the dentist. It's not like most people who hate the sound of the drill, but simply the pain. My teeth are really sensitive and even when fully numbed I can often still feel pain. This was the case on Monday, when I really couldn't feel half of my face, yet when he was deep in there, rooting around close to the nerve there was occasional stabbing pain from it. Also, my gums can be really soar when they've been poked and prodded about.

However, the thing I was most pleased about was that once the pain killer had worn off there wasn't any lingering pain and my gums were fine. Normally Id' expect pain from the swollen nerve and my gums for days, but it was all fine.

The bad news was that, because the other filling is also on the lower jaw, but on the other side, he only did the one filling, so I've got to go back again.

Things that go "squeak" in the night

On Tuesday night I had the aircon on, as mentioned above and that sent me off to sleep in a nicely cooled room, but later on it was obviously getting a bit stuffy in there as I woke up and had to open some windows.

I don't really like opening windows while I'm asleep, as it makes me feel a bit paranoid, and the windows don't really have a latch setting where you can open them enough to get a good flow of air in, but they're still locked, if you see what I mean. Anyway, point is that I opened them up a bit, though not fully wide and went back to sleep.

Until about 4AM when there was a sudden rattling noise on the window sill and then this really weird squeaky/growly noise outside. It's really difficult to describe, but it was like the sort of noise a guinea pig makes crossed with the sort of noise a dog makes when it's trying to get its toy out from under a chair.

Clearly some sort of beast (my guess is a squirrel) had jumped onto my window sill (those pesky big trees again) and... well, I'm not sure. Maybe it was trying to get in though the window or maybe it just sounded like that because its claws were scrabbling on the sill.

It gave me a real shock and I yelled out to try to frighten it away. Not sure if I did or it had already gone, but it really woke me up and I spent the rest of the morning watching stuff I'd recorded and listening out for it to happen again.

Actually I went on a bit more than I intended there, so I'll pick these short thoughts up again next week.