Shitty motorway services

Gutted! My vehicle kind of broke down last night and I'm currently stranded on the M6.

Will I make it to Scotland tonight???

And and and my blogger isnae working properly so I cannae spruce up this blog with images!!! Sympathy please! I can't even leave my 5 bags to go and powder my nose, or go and grab a coffee cos the useless regulations at travelodge wouldn't let me leave my luggage there!!! GRRRRR!

May have to trip up some old age penshies walking smuggly past me with their lunch and cawfee

Ubiquitous

Sarah, after much deliberation has decided to call it a day with her blog. She can take comfort and pride in the many readers who'll miss her eloquent tone, her very unique perspective and her ability to captivate her audience.

Sarah's blog was my first introduction to her. I would visit her blog countless times throughout the day. Captivated ever more by each post that I read and re-read and re-read (and analysed lol). Sarah was, I'm sure, ecstatic that her statcounter was ticking over at a rapid pace. At the time, I was completely unaware of fact that she could see who visited her blog, when they visited, how long they stayed for and how many times. The rouge filled my cheeks when she announced that someone from Yorkshire had been on her blog a *few* times. I was absolutely mortified! No one likes being caught red-handed at stalking/obsessed over a potential mate.

Well, for me, old habits die hard so I'll still be checking out her blog every day like a true devotee (read stalker). I look forward to seeing what my girrel does next...

Daily ride

I've been riding to work for the past month and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'd promised myself that the next job that I take I must be able to ride to work. I'd much rather be out on my bike than stuck in a traffic jam or overcrowded train/bus, even it it does take me until the 3rd km before I'm awake (the joy of getting up early). It still amazes me how tolerant Belgian drivers are of cyclists. Having refined my route, I've even managed to fit one hill into the ride, which is impressive considering the surrounding terrain. And more importantly, Sarah is now slowly accepting my demands for the daily application of E45 cream on my slightly chaffed derriere - it's purely a medical request on my behalf of course ;-)

Here are some pics from my commute:

Just in case I fancy a mid ride snack

I have to say that riding along the canal does make me reminisce of Old Blighty. No dumped shopping trolleys, no floating tampons or similar, no dead bodies and no burnt out Ford Fiestas! Here's a pic from the Water of Leith in Edinburgh just to prove my point.

This is the only thing that I've seen floating in the water so far.

Open wide...

One of the benefits of living in Belgium -as put to me by my g/f- is that Belgium has an excellent health care system. I had no reason to doubt this, up until last Friday that is.

I needed an urgent dental appointment so Sarah lined me up with a local dentist that we pulled from golden pages. She was told that there was no need to make an appointment and that it should be ok to just drop in. Sarah thought at the time that that was a bit strange; unfortunately it wasn't enough to ring any major alarm bells.

Now, I'm not one to prejudge people...that much…but upon arrival at said practice, to say that the outside was more akin to a funeral parlour was a bit of an understatement. Sarah brushed this off with "that's a *ahem* kind-of standard front shop for a Belgian dentist *ahem*"

Owkaaay.

We walked through the front door and the smell of cigarrettes instantly smacked us in the face. We find the waiting room with; you guessed it, no other waiting patients. We’re then greeted by an older man in a white coat with jeans and a fag in his hand. His appearance did nothing to instill confidence.

As he continued to smoke, I whispered to Sarah that if he asks, I'm here on holiday and we’re only here for a diagnosis and no more! Taking another draw of his fag, he gestures for me to sit in his dentist chair. Glancing down at the chair I notice a huge slash mark in the head section and some very antiquated looking tools to the right. He’s still smoking and now I’m really panicking!

He pulls the light overhead to inspect my mouth. He explains to Sarah in Dutch that my tooth is fine - relief! However, I become aware of a burning sensation on my delicate alabaster skin, which then breaks out into a small sweat. This is not nerves dear reader; this is me being burned by the ancient overhead light. Surely there must be regulations for melanoma inducing lights?!

And the radiation didn't stop there. He decided that it was best to take an x-ray of my gum. In the mean time he declared that I had an infection in my gum, possibly caused by a filling that was too close to my nerve. And you wonder why Brits have a reputation for dodgy teeth! After his postulation, he began, rather forthrightly, to question me on the causes/symptoms/treatments for bacterial infections.

Now, to give further insight, this guy was a paratrooper until 2 years ago, so you can imagine the military interrogation style that his questions took. Still having to cope with being burnt and the prospect of his fag fingers going in my mouth again, I was in no mood for being questioned. I was after all the patient, and he the dentist. I popped out a few pathetic nonchalant answers to which he was not impressed. This was when Sarah regressed into school mode. She had all the answers he was looking for and more! I think she even put her hand up once or twice to answer a question and I was thankful that the attention was removed from me and onto her. She appeared to be quite enjoying the bullet round of questions and answers.

Yes, back to the x-ray. He brought out this machine that would look more at home on a Marvin the Martian Looney Tunes cartoon. The X-ray confirmed his original diagnosis. Thank goodness for that, no more questions and answers.

Lesson learned: ask for recommendations for local dentists first before randomly pulling one from the golden pages and never, NEVER, visit one that doesn't need an appointment of sorts!