Down at the dentist's

I went to see my dentist today. For the first time in years and years and years. Now my teeth are all white and spangly and fresh and not hidden oral horrors any more, at all.

My dentist is a very diligent note-taker. I don't mean my dental records. He has a fistful of cards on which there is other stuff. He seems to know all the jobs I have had for the last sixteen years and makes pleasant small talk about my life experiences - possibly to distract me from whatever dentistry related worries I may be having. I had one or two things I wanted to ask him but all I could utter was 'glub' and 'splurp'. Some people are just difficult to get a word in edgeways with. Dentists have a distinct advantage here.

If I were to have left his surgery and had a near death experience - the 'life before my eyes' moment would have been a little better prepared than it would have been otherwise.

The only thing I know about my dentist outside of his dentistry - is that I think he is (or was) something of a patron of the musical arts. I base this solely on the facts that some sixteen years ago I had guitar lessons in a room under his surgery and also, at around that time there was a tiny, very quirky guitar shop next door to the surgery (where once I went, drunk, the day before a long sea voyage, the man in the shop played some music for me, and I bought it to take on the voyage). I have always assumed that the guitar teacher and the guitar shop man rented their space from my dentist. I never found out for sure. I haven't played my guitar in years.