a bit of a pain
Yesterday a piece of the tooth-with-a-temporary-filling which has caused me grief almost constantly since I was 17 years old (and that is a LONG time ago!) broke off. I was only eating salad - thought it might have been a bit of something which wasn't washed out of the salad. I phoned the dentist directly and was able to retrieve at least a part of the appointment I had for tommorow but cancelled after my last, successful, visit. The receptionist asked 'are you in pain', 'no', I replied, confidently (well, it has been very painful for over 20 years and now isn't!). I didn't know how it was going to develop though.
Now I face the prospect of trying to talk to the cardiologist whilst simultaneous dealing with the pain of having my tongue sawn into. Eating is somewhat of a problem too. I can't say I have tooth-ache and the full explanation seems a bit superfluous, I shall just do the best I can and hope I don't look too strange while trying to talk.

creativity
Yesterday afternoon I did something 'crafty' with the little children. I had bought some printed paper (a bit like patchwork fabric in range of designs) which I made into little squares and the children stuck them (patchwork-quilt style) onto paper. Very gratifying. We don't do enought 'arty' stuff because I don't like the resultant mess (good thing no-one can see my dining room floor right now....)
I DO think, though, that we ought to do drawing primarily, it ought to be less messy at least. perhaps if we did more of that our handwriting would be better.

This was a thought I had after a brief interchange of eamils on the subject of music therapy. When I was at school, and had my interview with the careers officer, the short-list of options included music therapy. I found out more about it and was all set to go and study (I even knew where I could study) but my mother put the kaibosch on it. That's how I ended up in the army. Well, it looks like I might get a chance to do it after all. Though I have to say that I am a bit concerned about what I have heard are the methods currently in use (don't know what they were back then...) whereby children are just given instruments and meant to therapise themselves with the consequences of their own efforts. I remember music lessons like this at school. Everyone was deemed capable of 'composing' and we had to get into groups and create 'music'. I got impatient with the inabilty of the others in my group to come up with something which sounded like 'music' and usually (I'm sorry to say) took over. This kind of dented my confidence in the benefits of 'group-work' from an early age. I always thought that those who knew the answers would TELL them, the rest would be glad to be told. Well, I was encouraged to hear from someone who has experience of music therapy with children like Victoria and it involved the discipline of coming to grips with the 'grammar' of music first. Of course, the easiest instrument for most people to learn to use is the voice and so that is where we will start.
Victoria loves to hear music - whether it is someone singing to her, or a cd playing (I confess, I haven't looked into her eyes when I have been practicing my violin - I might find it too depressing!) so once again I am brought to a position of tremendous thankfulness for this wonderful gift of God.