Lovely day at the Community Archives and Heritage Group seminar on Monday. I was not alone in wondering how a four figure sum could be spent recording gravestones. Impressive archaeology project by Widecombe Local History Group who have been trying to locate a Medieval Building. Also a very different spin on community history with an account of the Pride in Our Past project.

Today and the next step in the five week toothache saga. ‘Does it feel numb?’, asks the dentist as she wields her drill, having administered anaesthetic. Numb, yes. Numb enough, no. The dentist inserts a probe and riddles it up and down in the hole she has just drilled in my tooth. My wincing seems to make an impression. She inserts a second injection of anaesthetic. More riddling, more wincing and a third injection is dispensed. Then – you know that feeling when you just have to cough. There I am, with my mouth full of drills, mirrors, suction pumps and dentist’s hands and yes, I start coughing. This isn’t even the end of it as I have to go back to have this temporary filling replaced. I am now worse than I was before I started, heigh ho. I keep persuading myself that I am so much better off than my ancestors who made do without the triple As (anaesthetic, anti-biotic and antiseptic).

Is today the day to start transcribing the 1680 book of medical receipts I ask myself? Or have I had enough of things medical for one day. A quick look suggests that some of it is in Latin. Latin gave me up after two years of the likes of ‘Caesar’s spear is in the camp’. Nil desperandum. Still not sure about the cure for bleeding ‘Dyed blew linnen cloth soaked in vinegar & laid to the privities or the part affected,’ particularly as predicted text turned ‘the privities’ to ‘depravities’.