DENTISTS!

I didn't blog about it, but just before Chris and Sarah came to visit, I found a lump on my gum. I went to the dentist and she said it was an abcess and gave me three days antibiotics. No one could understand why I wasn't in any pain, other than being aware it was there. I was told some horrific tales about abcesses, and huge swollen faces with agonising pain, so was a bit apprehensive waiting for the pain to hit! The dentist has referred me to the dental hospital, to either have the crown and tooth removed, or drill into the root to drain the infection, which ever they decide. She said I will not hear from them for about three months!!

By yesterday, the abcess was still there so I went back to the dentist for some more antibiotics. She was about to prescribe some until I told her that I wasn't really in any pain with it. 'If you have no pain then I won't give you any more antibiotics' she said. She then proceeded to squeeze it and mess around with it in general, telling me I had to do the same to get the infection out. I also have to hold warm water in my mouth to encourage it to burst:0(

I have been quite successful with the squeezing, but I need a bit of help. Do you think it would be okay to steralize a needle and give it a helping hand? After all, dentist do lance them sometimes I am told.

Fancy having to carry on like this for three more months. And supposing I had been in agony like most people are? It is right above to my front tooth, and really feels annoying. I just hope it doesn't suddenly come to life and cause my face to swell up like a football like my mother-in-laws did:0( She was in absolute agony.

PROBLEMS

Can you please use this space for comments? I have corrected the problem I had:0)

Geocaching

Yesterday we decided to take Livvie on a 'treasure hunt'. It is called Geocaching. There is a site dedicated to this and people all over the world join in!

http://www.geocaching.com/

You have to have a GPS, and you download coordinates into your GPS. (The coordinates will guide you very close to the where the 'treasure' is hidden), then you scrabble about looking for it! It involves a walk which could be of any length, so you get to see some lovely countryside as well.

Anyway, Livvie was looking forward to it because we had done one the day before and failed to find it:0( We think some children must have come across it by accident, and trashed it.

We set off and soon found ourselves in Green Moor, Wortley. It took us a little time to find the footpath we were to use, and we had a lovely walk following it. The clues called for another footpath to be picked up at a certain point, and we took what we thought was the correct one. Fortunately for us it was the wrong one, and meant that we had an extra walk all along the embankment of the River Don. It was beautiful, but I couldn't go all the way with Livvie and Len because it became very slopey and slippery due to the recent flooding of the river Don. Here are a couple of photos taken on that walk.

They left me alone for probably 15 minutes at the most, but surprisingly I felt very vunerable standing in the middle of the woods alone, unable to move in any direction in case I slipped and fell into the river! It was deathly quiet and I kept imagining all sorts of scenarios!

However, back they came and we retraced our footsteps to eventually find the correct path. The scenery all the while was lovely. We live in a very beautiful county. The final part of the walk was up a steep stoney hill. We sent Livvie ahead to have a good look for the treasure. The final clue was 'under some flat stones by a stone gatepost'. She was rummaging around behind a dry stone wall when she lifted a stone and spied the treasure box. This is a photo of it before we removed it. Then one of the box when she opened it.

This is a picture of the hill we had to walk up, plus a photo of the walking boots that I gave to Livvie. She was so thrilled with them that she insisted I took a picture of them:0)

Anyway....Livvie exitedly opened up the cache and began to rummage through it. The idea is that you take something out of the box and then put something in to replace it. Livvie took a funky ruler, which I will show you, and a compass. She replaced them with a very nice keyring torch and a small ball. We filled in the log book and carefully hid the cache again. If there is anybody around at all, (non geocachers are calle muggles) then we don't go near the cache. We must make sure that we are completely alone before uncovering or replacing a cache, because unfortunately there are some rotten people about who just love to ruin everything. The first picture is of Livvie spoils, and the others are the workings of her 'funky' ruler! Anyway, we had a lovely afternoon, and we are already lining up some more caches to do.

Just one more thing that I thought I would tell you, which has nothing to do with the caches or walking!

On the first Saturday Chris and Sarah were here, they had a wedding to go to and so I was baby sitting. Everything was going fine, and the boys were very happy. I put Jo up in his cot for his afternoon nap, and as everything went quiet immediately, I was feeling very pleased with myself. About 30 minutes later Jo started screaming, so I went upstairs to see what was wrong. You should have seen the sight that greeted me! Jo was standing in his cot with lots of red and black all over his face, clothes and duvet. I thought, in the semi darkness, (the curtains were of course drawn) that he was covered in fresh and dried blood! I could see nothing at all wrong anywhere else. I opened the curtains in panic to see where he was bleeding from, and thinking that Chris and Sarah would never trust me again, when I realised he was covered all over in lipstick, mascara and foundation, not to mention other creams. The crafty little boy had opened a drawer where I keep spare make up and had undone and used everything, before carefully closing the drawer again! This is a photo of the drawer. I was in such a panic initially, that I didn't think to take a photo of him. I wish I had!! I had a mammoth cleaning up job, and the lipstick and mascara would only come off by using baby oil, gently and persistently rubbing it into his face! All the photos will enlarge with a click.