Yes I am relaxed. And the reason? I have been to the dentist and had a filling and it is OVER. I have done it, no more fillings, no more panic and lying there with the dentist looming over you and the drilling inside your mouth resounding inside your head and no matter how hard you try, you keep remembering the torture scene in The Marathon Man when Dustin Hoffman went to the dentist.........
I just have to go back in a couple of months for cleaning and scaling and a bit of the old tarting up and I am safe, safe, safe and just hope that I don't have a tooth or filling drop out over Christmas. Got home feeling totally shattered and shaky and had to lie down for an hour. Completely silly to get so worked up about the dentist I know, but just one of those irrational fears that one can do nothing about. Was going to go up to London tomorrow but that has been cancelled and I have to say, I am quite relieved as I feel I want a quiet day. I have some bits of Christmas shopping to be done, very little thank goodness and I will just troll into Colchester and take my time and as it is mid-week it will not be the hell on earth it is at the weekends.
You will remember that Delia Smith galvanised me into action and I baked a Christmas cake. I am pleased to tell you that it cooked beautifully and the smell filled my flat and made it all warm and spicy. This was the end result taken out of the oven.
And here it is, all cooled and ready to be wrapped up in greaseproof paper and put in a cake tin where it currently resides. I will not be doing the traditional marzipan and icing bit with this cake as the addition of these overpowers the flavour of this lighter cake, but will be glazing with apricot jam and I might, or might not put nuts and thingies on the top - I will see what I feel like doing. I may just leave it as it is.
I really enjoyed baking this cake and something rather nice and cosy about standing in the kitchen mixing and beating and folding. Brought back memories when I used to cook for a living and I would be in my kitchen back in the house with the children running in and out and wanting to lick out the bowl or 'help' me mix up things which usually ended in chaos. But it was fun...
And this is definitely my week for getting all domestic. I received the wool and knitting needles I ordered the other day and have started knitting a cot blanket for my expected granddaughter in March and it is already looking lovely and fluffy and I get all misty eyed as I do each stitch. Have been sitting on the sofa, needles clicking away, while watching the BBC's Alan Bennett week in which they have been repeating Talking Heads which are quite quite wonderful. The other night it was Thora Hird, an old lady in a nursing home awaiting a telegram from the Queen for her birthday and thinking back to all those years ago when another, but different, kind of telegram was delivered. I sat with silent tears dripping off my cheeks - what a superb wonderful actress, one minute making you laugh and then with a simple inflection of a word and a look, you are crying. I shall be writing more about Alan Bennett in another post.
But for now, off to bed and I shall sleep well tonight knowing that I don't have to get up in the morning and go to THE DENTIST.
