Dentist

I just booked myself a dentists appointment. Last time I went to the dentist he asked me "do you have any problems with dentists?" I said "huh?" (that's about all you can say if someone's holding your mouth open to look inside). He assumed that as I hadn't been for several years I had a phobia. I didn't, I was just lazy, but that was hard to explain in a dentists chair situation.

That time it worked out quite luckily for me. I had been transferred to my current surgery when my old dentist retired. I was registered as an NHS patient and if, as an NHS patient, you don't go for a checkup for over 18 months or something they take you off the NHS register and make you a private patient. I hadn't been for much longer than 18 months but luckily as I had never been to this surgery so they had never completed my registration. The first time I went they completed signing me up and I got to stay as an NHS patient. (For any non british readers, the difference in price between private and NHS is that it's about £15 for a checkup and clean on the NHS and about £100 if you are private) Which was a bonus. I have to assume I'm going to be paying private prices now unless I've somehow left it so long the system forgets about me.

I actually did go a few times after that, at 6 monthly intervals, until I moved house and never got round to sending them my new address so they never sent me the reminder letter. To gague how long it's been since I went, it seems I've moved house 5 times since the address they have on file for me. Ooops. The dentist I saw last time no longer works at the surgery, I doubt he'd have remembered me anyway.