Feeling sorry for myself

I’ve had a quiet day today.

The evening before going off to New York I broke a tooth.  Not just any old tooth, of course, but one which had been crowned and root filled and was hardly a tooth at all.

Until my dentist tried to get it out this morning, that is.

Having weighed up the choices I decided that there was little point in going through further root canal treatment and suchlike when there was no guarantee of success and though the implant option was going to cost megabucks (well, kilopounds, to be accurate) this is an important tooth (lower left molar) and I’m hoping that I’ll need it for a few years yet.

So, this morning I visited the dentist to have what remained of the tooth extracted.  It really didn’t want to part company with me but thankfully, the result was dentist 1 : tooth 0, together with one surprisingly shaky me, as well.  I hadn’t quite expected to feel quite so wobbly!

It was a quiet and rather subdued farewell to Aussie John at lunchtime, then, and a quiet afternoon spent with a pile of distractions – Kindle, a couple of digital art books, the last of my subscription to Making magazine (don’t bother!) and the £99 tablet I bought at Asda a couple of weeks ago for reading blogs and suchlike.

We have fun planned for this weekend, however, so I shall allow myself just a few more hours wallow and will then get a grip, for heavens sake.  Can’t be lolling around any longer!

Home again

I’ve spent the morning sorting out stuff which we emptied quickly from the minibus sometime around 11.30pm last night.  Imagine a bus-sized lunchbox to empty…  Suffice to say, we have enough snacks to keep us going for a while and when the Three Peaks group reconvenes for a celebratory party sometime soon, there are plenty of leftovers to share.

The “lost property” box isn’t too full, thank goodness.

In the meantime, the (real, Gaggenau) fridge man Rupert has been to attempt a repair on our still ailing fridge.  The (British Gas) man Alan has been to attempt a repair on our now broken – also Gaggenau - oven and neither has been successful. Rupert will return with the necessary spare parts for the fridge shortly and will, perhaps, also mend our oven whilst he’s here.  Funny how we are on first name terms with these chaps, isn’t it?

Aussie friend John is still with us here and fast becoming indispensable for his good humoured and amenable approach to helping us with all these little challenges which occur.  He also makes a mean cup of tea!

Sad news came in the form of a telephone call to say that Mark’s Uncle Tobe, at 98, the oldest member of our family, had died yesterday in the Cheltenham hospital where he’d spent the last couple of weeks.  We didn’t see Tobe – whose name was really Herbert - that often, but he was an ongoing presence at our dining table whenever we had something to celebrate.  One of the first things Edward learned as a small boy was that after just one sizeable glass of sherry, port or madeira, Uncle Tobe could become rather a lot of fun and after two, sufficiently un-PC as to create Edward much amusement and ourselves a fair bit of explanation!  We’ll miss him, of course, but perhaps, for Tobe, it was time.

But the one, all-inspiring topic of conversation in this household today is of course, the marvellous achievement of our friends this weekend and I hope David doesn’t mind my pinching his photograph of the group at the summit of Scafell, taken sometime shortly after dawn on Sunday morning, illustrating the awful weather conditions they endured.  One by one, they called, texted or emailed, each still on a high from the last couple of days. 

What remarkable people they are. What a fantastic thing they have done.

More photos here

On our way home

So very much looking forward to a shower and clean clothes, too!

Yes!

They did it. The three highest peaks in five minutes short of 24 hours.

We're looking forward to their return and to telling them how proud we are of their achievement. It really was not at all easy.

Snowdon - last lap

1.15, ready for the final push.

Best news? The sun is shining!