Talking of teeth
I think that a filling must have moved. One of my teeth is very sensitive to hot and cold.

I discovered that my site appears on a site for orthodontists. I didn’t think that I talked about the children’s teeth that much. Anyway, for the benefit of any dentist who happens to pass this way: Our orthodontist is called Dr. Billard and he is very kind and gentle. He reminds me of Eloise’s tutor, Philip (“shall we settle down Eloise?”) and wears Snoopy socks. Dominique has a very sensitive mouth and threw up on him so he designed her braces without a mould. (One in about 5000 people have this problem). Dominique’s teeth are nice and even now. Olivier has the same problem so Dr. Billard got him to concentrate on his breathing, which really worked Olivier has a brace at the front of his mouth at the bottom. It is helping his bottom lip to push back his teeth. He takes it off to clean his teeth, a real fiddle but he’s got the hang of it now. Later he will have a brace on the top set.

Christian has perfect teeth.

When I was at junior school, we had the school dentist who used to arrive with his dreaded caravan. When I was six I broke one of my front teeth. I had years of treatment on it. I was terrified and used to scream and cry. When I got to secondary school I stopped screaming and crying because the caravan was parked under the boy prefect’s common room window and they could see in through the skylight. I was still terrified. When I left school I knew that I should see a dentist every six months so I booked an appointment with Mr. Barnby. The first thing he noticed was the white of my knuckles as I gripped the arms of the Dentist’s chair. He took time to explain to me about relaxing. Then he said “Give it a try, it can’t be any worse”, so I did. It worked!!!! Over the time that I saw him he put me crowns on three of my front teeth which was a great confidence booster. I used to enjoy going to the dentist! Mr. Barnby moved away and I later found out that he had become Chairman of the British Dental Association. Thank you Mr. Barnby.

When my children were small I bought a very nice book about ‘Going to the Dentist’ and I took them for check-ups with the dentist in the village, Mr. Canard. He always takes time to explain to them (and me) exactly what he’s doing Fortunately, they’ve needed very little work done to their teeth and treat going to the dentist as just one of those things.