The Poor Mouth

Wasn't it Flann O'Brien/Myles na Gopoleen who wrote a book called 'the Poor Mouth, a satire of Irish rural ways from the embittered bar-room of a very funny and strange man.

Well, after my visit to the very nice orthodontist I came away with an estimate rather as you would on your car. After much inspection of large x-rays it was decided I might need a crown, a replacement crown, three fillings and something between a filling and a crown. There was even a second mechanic there pointing to possible extra work although at one point I implored him to not find anything else.

Some of this is my own fault and the result of the transitional year I've lived without a dentist but some appears to be work that should have been spotted some time ago and wasn't by my NHS dentist, who was working incredibly long days (8-6) on a dentistry assembly line in Kent.

Ach. Still anything to take away the foul bitter taste from the broken tooth that has plagued me for two months. I see a colleague of the lead guy tomorrow for a first session.

Later I managed to prize a broken key end from the outside store lock at the new gaff - see the reddened house near the top of the hill on the left. I took the two parts and went in search of a key cutter. After talking to a paper-seller in Piazza Liberta' down in Florence he pointed me to the best one around in the zone. And he was good and the key fits. Two for €3 which will hardly offset the dentist's whopping bill but a little triumph.

We took a stroll around the Fiesole hill in the early evening and up to the wee church and the fabulous views.

The photo is taken looking down Via Salviati which links the place of work to the home via the steep sided Mugnone valley. And I'm being overtaken by motorbikes going down the hill.

And then my Nikon battery charger packed up.

An incident earlier. In the flat the decorators broke a pretty ostrich eggshell lampshade. Today I took the bits to a bar where they were to be picked up by the decorator to have a replacement made. The woman at the bar referred the matter to a harassed owner making and doling out all kinds of delicious lunch orders. He declared himself ignorant of the person in question, our landlady, and said he could not take the package. In despair I searched the bar for the photo of her and her young son when snow was thick on the ground and the buses were not running. I pointed to the photo and said, ' That's her, there, in the snow.' The guy eventually relented and took the suspect package, telling me I'd given the wrong name, which was true. Like Smith for Schmidt. The double consonants or lack thereof in Italian still catch me out.

Later I returned to the local council. We got a couple of the sections of the rubbish tax form filled. Now I need the dati catastali - sq metrage and national property map plan sheet and page number for the flat, garden, garage parking space, external parking space etc.