A year or so ago I finally reregistered with a dentist, returning to the practice handily located at the end of my road. Last time I had a hygienist appointment they moved it to their other branch, in town, and now to make things even more inconvenient they’ve merged with another practice three miles away.
Anyway, I had a checkup in my calendar on Tuesday, so I dutifully cycled out there, only to find that the appointment was actually on Monday. So I’ve now been slapped with a £15 non-attendance fee, and have a new appointment in a month’s time.
After over two years of having to turn the kitchen hot tap on via the isolation valve under the sink every time I wanted to use it, because otherwise it leaked prodigiously, I finally managed to get the tap housings undone yesterday to replace the cartridges (spurred on by the fact that the cold was starting to drip too). It was, as YouTube had originally told me, “just” a case of unscrewing the bits below the taps, but as they were ludicrously tight and helpfully have no flats on them, it took a lot of force with slip joint pliers protected by some cut off bits of inner tube, and a strong conviction that despite appearances they were actually a separate part from the base. Then after only a short time figuring out where I’d put the new inserts when I finally got fed up with them sitting on the side in the kitchen, it all went back together nice and easily and now I finally have normal working taps again! I was beginning to think I’d have to call a plumber.
On Wednesday I noticed a strange-looking straggly thing on the patio behind the house, then was slightly shocked to realise that it was actually an animal skeleton. I can’t say for sure that it was a cat, but it seems likely that it was, which means it was probably Shadow, who’s been missing for a couple of months. I can only assume she had some kind of fatal injury from a fight or a car, crawled into the undergrowth out of sight, and some animal or other pulled the remains out last night.
Anyway, she’s now been buried, and at least it’s some kind of closure, if not as pleasant as the “found another home” story I’d been half-heartedly telling myself.
Tuesday was the final Summer Series 5k, and fortunately no-one old and quick turned up so I completed my clean sweep of MV50 trophies. I managed to scrape under 21 minutes too, which is my fastest time on that course (which has a nasty steep hill which you have to go up twice, although obviously that implies a lot of downhill too). Then on Thursday there was a brief reappearance of the Thursday Tempo Ten, a training run that a bunch of friends usually do in the autumn and winter months. It’s basically five miles out and five back, at what’s supposed to be tempo pace, but for me is pretty much flat out (the target’s generally 70 minutes). This time they only aimed for 75, which meant I felt obliged to keep up with them, and it was as horrible as it always is.
I took my blood pressure again a couple of times, and it was much more normal. Although it turns out the ZOE thing was a one-off reading, so I guess they’ll have me down as hypertensive now.