My pre-New Year resolutions

Thanks again to everyone for their (supportive) comments about last week's post - I was definitely feeling a bit low, and it was good to go and spend some time with my family. It's in times like this that you realise what's important, I think!

It's sad for me to imagine my grand-mother (ever so intellectual, always with a book in one hand, Le Monde in the other, analysing world issues, and complaining about the government...) completely incapacitated to the point she would not recognise her own children. I find it difficult to express what I feel, especially in a non-whining way.

Anyway, things will carry on - and I have decided to 'attack' 2 new pre-New Year projects in my personal life. One of them actually has a (very tenuous) link with my grand-mother. I remember her talking (very uncharitably, I might add) about a friend of my aunt's, who was (apparently) a beautiful woman - but (and I quote my grand-mother here) "such a shame she did not do anything about her front teeth! Nowadays, it's so easy to have something done..." In some weird way, these words have really stuck, and although I am still a few years from mid-life crisis (hum, it may depend on what you mean by midlife and by crisis), I feel I now have to do something about my front teeth.

let me sum up the situation: I have bizarre teeth: 22 adult teeth (the rest being desiduous) (my new word for the week, which was introduced by my lovely dentist on Wednesday). The good thing is - I didn't get the usual issues with wisdom teeth. Less good is the fact that my ill-advised parents took me to see an orthodontist* when I was 10, and she took the very bad decision of extracting a couple of my desiduous incisives. Ensued 8 years of painful brace... and the final result was revealed to my a bit before my 19th birthday as I remember it (give or take a few months): my front teeth amounted to 2 incisors and 2 canines - with a few millimetres between each tooth. Lovely. My orthodontist didn't seem to understand why I was suddenly annoyed, and exclaimed triumphantly : " But they are equally spaced!!!"
And then I burst into tears.

Anyway, I have spent the past 15 years or so trying to ignore them and more or less succeeding in that enterprise... But I suddenly thought it was time I did something about it. So I went to see my dentist and he wanted to fit me with a bridge with teeth comparable to Camilla's (yes, Prince Charles')... In order to achieve this (ridiculous) project, I was told about 2 millimetres of my jaw would have to be...'filed' (for lack of a better word), in order to ensure my horsey teeth were a perfect fit... Yeah, well, believe it or not, it's actually not on my agenda to suffer the worst pains in order to achieve the perfect smile. I am not (quite) that vain. Yet. So back on my quest for the colgate smile - the dentist is now to "write an essay" (his words) about 2 different solutions to improve my front teeth. Hollywood smile may become a reality some time in 2006.... And that, my friend, is my pre-new Year project Numéro Un...

Project Numéro Deux is fairly topical, in so far as I will have to take the (in)famous Britishness test... Yes, I want to become British. Une Rosbif. (but very rare obviously, HAHAHA) Imagine that. This has been bugging me for a while, but the last straw was definitely the jury duty issue - I am not British. I live in the UK. I pay UK taxes & National Insurance contributions. I vote in local and european elections. I have been selected for Jury Duty. Yet I cannot vote for the general elections... So: I have to become British. Apparently it should be OK : I am married to a UK citizen (hum, maybe better say subject, given it's a monarchy!), I have resided in this country, well... for ages... I have not committed crimes against humanity or fomented terrorist activities... I am in the clear. Yes. Unless I fail the Britishness test... I will keep you posted with regards to any development about this challenge... I am extremely excited about the perspective of having a kind of UK induction ceremony. (yes, I know, I am easily amused!)

In the meantime: time to post some interesting information about what's French in Edinburgh!

Lxox


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* Her name sounded like "nerve taster" in French - it should really have indicated to them that she may not have been appropriate for cosmetic orthodonstry....