(no subject)

[andrew_jorgensen]

After much searching, I finally found something to do in London that isn't at all fun. rahael and I were eating breakfast this morning -- cereal with blueberries and bananas -- when I felt something in my mouth that might have been an unripened blueberry, were blueberries just a tad more metallic. I fished around and pulled out a small silver-pewter object -- I had lost a filling. Joy. So now I have an appointment with a dentist on the Kensington High Street tomorrow, and until then I'll be eating with a ginger touch. And since we're having Thai tonight, what I eat will have a touch of ginger.

rahael has updated about our journey through the Cotswolds, but she's left her readers where I left her, in the Spa Station at Bath. After seeing her off, my father and I drove out of town, where we quickly came upon a sign for a "Canal Visitors' Centre." On a whim we checked it out: there was no sign of the "Visitors' Centre" I had feared, with its dioramas of 19th Century canal construction and earnest display cases featuring artifacts of the lives of the digging classes; instead there was a little cafe and, lo!, a canoe rental. So we paddled between the narrowboats for a bit. The canals of high-rent Amsterdam had prepared me for the adaptations people would make to the narrowboats to make them liveable (though I saw only one with a satellite dish), but nothing prepared me for our right turn onto the aqueduct.

Apparently, the engineer decided that he could build a nine-mile stretch of the Kennet & Avon Canal without a single lock, an impressive feat, but only if he took the canal from one side of the valley to the other. Twice. So he built aqueducts. (There was apparently a bit of local politics in the building -- the architect was convinced that only brick would be sturdy enough a material for the aqueducts, but the local industry was based on limestone, so the architect was overruled.)

There we were, canoeing over not only a river, but a road and the railway. The canal on the other side of the valley was peaceful, nearly empty of the narrowboats that had crowded the canal before, and well-populated with ducks. At one point, I looked to my left and realized that I was seeing the tops of trees. In my (admittedly very limited) experience, when I've been paddling and could see ground below me, I'm generally trying to figure out how to run the whitewater at the bottom, but the water in the canal was perfectly flat.

After returning the canoe to the rental shop, we drove to Stonehenge. We had been warned that it would be overrun with tourists, but at six-thirty in the evening it's nearly empty, almost idyllic. The National Trust won't let visitors anywhere near the monument, though, and it closes well before I could attempt to line up the sunset with anything, so no archaeoastronomy for me.

The next day we visited Bournemouth (which is much the Jersey Shore were the boardwalk tarmacked) and Winchester (where I did not dance on Jane Austen's grave). Then it was on to London where I was reunited with rahael. And now I sit in Leytonstone, trying to munch cakes with only the right side of my mouth.

Comments

[lynnmonster.livejournal.com]

So sorry about the filling! I *hate* having dental work done -- it must be much more complicated on vacation abroad.

But your canoeing trip sounds wonderful! Although I cannot fathom why you would want to dance on Jane Austen's grave.

P.S. -- Sekrit message from beastlydead: he really, really wants to get in touch with you. Something about PKD... I wasn't entirely clear on what. But I think he's writing about him and wants your input! So he inveigled me into promising to prod you to email him...

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

And in case you don't happen to recall beastlydead's email, it's his full first name plus last name (all one word) at earthlink, which, as you are no doubt aware, is a dot-net rather than a dot-com.

Trip sounds idyllic, except for the dentist bit. Especially considering how famous the English are for their bad teeth. Although I fancy the latter can be traced to a paucity of orthodontists, rather than an inferior supply of dentists.

Love to you and Rah, and greetings from Jen and Mark, whom I saw at Reunion.

[rahael.livejournal.com]

My reaction to d'H's loss of filling was: "but I don't know any dentists! It's really hard to see one here!"

It really is. I myself haven't gone to a dentist for a number of years that is rather shameful to admit. But I still have better teeth than d'H!

[lynnmonster.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

I haven't been to a dentist in ... oh, it must be ... nine years. ~gulp~

And am getting rather nervous about it ...

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that the English came much later to fluoridation than the Americans. Now that they've started treating the water supply, though, the English simply aren't living up to their stereotypes.

To reiterate: I emailed Ben!

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

To reiterate:
I submitted my comment before your reply to Lynn was posted. :P

And also, I wish y'all would link to things by people I know when you stumble across them. I don't just go around trolling though the VLS on the off-chance you know! As for Rousseau's grave: if I recall correctly, there were quite a few people (read: everyone who ever met him) who were interested in dancing on it, or otherwise desecrating it as ostentatiously as possible, back in the 18th century when he shuffled off, &c., which probably accounts for the extra care taken to make his grave unsusceptible of desecration.

Good luck with the tooth doctor!

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

When I was in the Cathedral of Santa Croce in Florence, atop the tomb of Macchiavelli, I made it my life's work to dance upon the final resting places of as many authors of the Core works as I could. I was frustrated in the Pantheon in Paris, as they keep Jean Jacques Rousseau (whom I was most looking forward to jigging above) not only above ground but behind a sturdy barrier. In any case, I forestalled dancing on top of Jane because many of my LJ friends love her so.

I emailed beastlydead already and have been patiently awaiting his response. I caught his piece on Dick in the VLS (I was reading someone's bookblog and clicked on a link promissing an article on Philip K. Dick, only to find that the article was written by someone who used to make fun of me for reading him), so I can't imagine he still has any questions that might inform the writing of that. Pass along some email address of mine (the LJ one will work just as well), and tell him it's his turn!

[lynnmonster.livejournal.com]

Pass along some email address of mine (the LJ one will work just as well), and tell him it's his turn!

Yessir!

And I get the gravetop thing now. Although you'll have to class me in with the rest of the Jane-lovers, so I'm sort of glad you passed on that one!

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I can recommend a dentist in the Walthamstow/Chingford area, if you're interested. Don't know how the payment would work.

That acqueduct thing sounds fascinating.

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the offer. I may yet take you up on that -- I went with the first place that I could find through Google. I don't know how I will pay for it, but fillings run from forty pounds up, so I guess if it has to be it can be cash. The dentist does a lot of cosmetic work, as well as emergency work on travellers, so I don't suppose I'll shock them by offering a credit card instead of an NHS card.

[rebekahroxanna.livejournal.com]

If worse comes to worse use an ATM card to get cash. Almost forgot to make the reservation for Chicago. I'll make it now before I take off. I miss you. Not a link Have to call have written down phone number and will call soon.

Co-incidence alert

[atpotch.livejournal.com]

OK, so quite without my saying anything about it, you write an entry about an aqueduct which is ten minutes walk from my home address.

TCH

Re: Co-incidence alert

[dherblay.livejournal.com]

I made quite a few walks this weekend; another ten minutes wouldn't have killed me. I must admit though that as I looked at the Royal Crescent, I asked Rah, "So, in which of these does TCH live?"

It wasn't a 'Sliding Doors' type scenario

[atpotch.livejournal.com]

Partly because you're a much more interesting character than the Gwyneth Paltrow one, but mostly because I'm not at home at the moment, I'm in my term-time university digs in Coventry.

-I live on the end: the middle ones are unconscionably dingy, and never let one forget that one is living in a terrace.

TCH

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

You got to go to Stonehenge! The south of England was the only part I didn't get to see on my tour lo those many years ago, which is ironic, since the part of my heritage that is English (admittedly skimpy) is from Devonshire.