Dental "Emergency"

(Boat Flamingo - posted by Alan)

(Post for Wednesday 21st August)


Strictly this post starts off in yesterday, but yesterday was complicated enough without this, so I've carried it over into today...

Having had all the fun and games of deciding to take Sickle back to the mooring, and carrying on delayed with Flamingo, I became increasingly aware that bits of my dentistry that ought to be fixed firmly in place were starting to feel as if they no longer were.  I have fairly appalling dentistry, with rather more plastic and metal than my own teeth, I would say, stemming from an atrocious school dentist who did her worst, and from which they were never likely to recover.

As feared as we were nearly into Braunston last night, a bridge decided to detach itself - why do these things only seem to happen when you don't have access to your regular dentist? (I mean a dental bridge, here of course, not a canal one, just to be clear!).

A bit of use of Google seemed to suggest three dental practices in Daventry, but the first two I phoned quickly told me I had little chance of any appointment for days or weeks.  The third initially said the same, but eventually told me if I paid a fairly large charge to be seen privately they could fit me in, but it wouldn't be until the early afternoon.  This meant much of today's boating time would be lost, but now with only one boat, it should still be possible to catch it back up.

A friend was going from Braunston into Daventry, and kindly not only delivered me there, but also dropped and collected Cath from the Tesco, allowing a top up of supplies.

I had a couple of hours to kill, and I have to say Daventry is not the most exciting town to pass away time in with nothing to do  The Costa, at least, was much like any other.

Hillmorton Locks

Eventually I was seen, but the surgeon I saw was not too impressed with what he was trying to fix back together - a great disappointment, as I spent a fortune having it done not many years back.  However, put it back together he did, at which point a further large charge became due, despite only about 10 minutes in the chair.






Thereafter I got a taxi back to Braunston, and not yet being allowed to eat, set off almost immediately.

Hillmorton, again.

We reckoned we could get to probably Newbold despite not leaving until after 2:00 p.m.  In practice though, when we got to Newbold, there were no available moorings at all, so we pressed on to All Oaks, by which time it was getting quite late.  However for the second day, despite the problems, we were back on track for the timings on our original plan.  It is just as well we had initially built in slack to allow for moving two boats - with just the one we were really getting along a whole lot faster.

 
Braunston to All Oaks (near Brinklow)
Miles 15.1, Locks: 3
Total Miles 25.5, Total Locks:16