We are spending a couple of days in an apartment in Docklands with a relative of Tigger’s.

The early part of the day was spent collecting said relative from the railway station, having lunch then filling in time before we could access the apartment by going on a bus ride. I felt no particular inclination to record this part of the expedition in writing or photos until we reached Greenwich.

Here we made a visit to what was originally the Millennium Dome and is today an O2 centre.

Above is what I am tempted to call a street in the O2 because it looks very much like a high street in a small town, except that instead of the sky, there is a canvas roof covering the whole site. This gave me the curious sensation of being an extra on a film set.

This is another view from inside the dome though I don’t think it does it justice. In the centre is a sweeping staircase, flanked on either side by an escalator.

The yellow legs on the right, looking like something from a set of a film of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, are part of one of the twelve supports holding up the roof.

A partial view of the Dome from outside. It is a peculiar structure and I cannot imagine what possessed the architects to design it. The huge roof is suspended by cables stretched from the aforementioned legs and I can’t help wondering if it might one day collapse.

This is a more general view of the area which has plenty of open space.

I took this to show the tops of some of the supports holding up the canvas roof. In the foreground is a long glass canopy covering the path from the tube station to the O2.

While waiting for the bus out, I photographed this now historic vestige. Properly called gas holders, they were popularly called gasometers. The iron skeleton that is all that is now left originally contained a drum that rose and fell as it was filled with gas and this was used by consumers.

The gas, of course, was “town gas”, that is, gas made from coal. When the UK changed over to North Sea gas, the gas holders lost their purpose. By this time, however, they had come to be appreciated for their historic value. Some are now listed buildings while others have been modified for new use or incorporated into new buildings.

We changed buses in Poplar where I took a photo through the railings of All Saints Church. As the style might suggest, it was built in the early 19th century (1821-3).

We eventually arrived at Crossharbour and gained possession of our apartment.

This is a quick panorama of the lounge and kitchenette. Not that you can see much detail because of the small scale.

Having made the acquaintance of the apartment, we went out to do a little necessary shopping at the nearby ASDA store.

Darkness had fallen giving this view of the docks with lights reflected in the water.

Some of the buildings are monstrously big, like this cylindrical blot on the landscape. Docklands no longer fulfils the purpose of its name, being given over to office blocks and luxury apartments.

Another memento of times past: these three cranes that once loaded and unloaded cargo ships from all over the world, stand silent and still. Sealed and immobilised, they remain as monuments to an era that is gone for ever.

The docks remain, but no ship can access them now because, even if the water were still deep enough, which I doubt, the entrances are blocked by new roads and bridges. All that sail on these waters today are coots, swans and visiting gulls.

Yesterday evening I went for the long awaited consultation with my dentist. He had been on holiday during the mini-drama of my toothache described in my previous posts on the subject.

He sat and listened attentively while I told the story. In this opening gambit, I refrained from detailing the other dentist’s dire prognostications regarding the ultimate fate of that tooth, preferring to let him reach his own conclusions. He knows my teeth, so to speak, better than a stranger coming upon them for the first time.

While I pretended to relax in the chair, he took an X-ray and while this was being developed, had a good look around my mouth.

He then showed me the X-ray and outlined his conclusions. Happily, these are much more optimistic than those of the other dentist.

Despite having an unusually deep filling, the tooth in question was sound. The problem was its proximity to its next door neighbour which favoured the trapping of extraneous matter, giving rise to the sort of infection that I had just endured. Work will need to be done (I won’t bore you with the details) which will settle matters for the foreseeable future.

Being of an anxious disposition, when things go wrong, I tend to think the worst. This time, to be fair, the stand-in dentist had encouraged my pessimism. It was a relief to find that the situation was not as bad as I had come to imagine. So it was that, as I bade my dentist goodbye, I heard myself say “Once again, I leave happier than when I came.”

Quite so!

This is an edited version of a post that appeared on my old blog on October 26th 2006.

When I was young we lived in Brighton. We had a cat called Toby, a tortoise called André after a favourite character in a story on children’s radio and later a dog, a small female Scottish Terrier known as Miffy. Along with these creatures, we had goldfish, tadpoles, newts and Tiger Moths. The goldfish, tadpoles and newts never did well. In fact, their mortality rate bordered on the scandalous. The Tiger Moths, on the other hand, did extremely well.

We had a back garden with poor soil and a lawn which was no doubt a fragment of the original field on which the houses had been built. My mother fought to maintain some semblance of order and beauty in it but this was an uphill struggle. Every year, along with slugs, snails, woodlice, ants, wasps and all sorts of worms and grubs, the garden would host a contingent of brown furry caterpillars. I would collect one (or sometimes more), put it in a jam jar with a perforated lid and keep it well supplied with peony leaves.

Left to their own devices, caterpillars are eating machines. They eat all day long with a wonderful dedication to the task in hand. I would watch as the caterpillar’s head swung rhythmically right and left as it consumed the peony leaves it was resting on. That’s about all it ever did, except produce dark brown droppings and get bigger and bigger, until it suddenly stopped eating.

It would then remain still for some time, perhaps hours or a day, as if lost in thought. More than once, I thought the caterpillar had died. But no, all at once the head movement began again but now the creature was not eating. At first it was hard to see what it was doing, especially if, as often happened, it had betaken itself inside a cluster of leaves. After a while it became apparent that around it were forming very fine silver threads. Over the next few hours, the caterpillar would labour away, producing threads and as it did so, it would gradually disappear from view. At last all movement would cease and the jar could be set aside pending the next exciting development.

That development was, of course, the emergence of the Tiger Moth. Tiger Moths are spectacular creatures. The body is is furry and the head and shoulders are covered by a dark brown cape of fine brown hair. The front wings are brown with a line pattern of white or beige, hence the “tiger” name. It is the rear wings that startle you with their contrast because they are orangey red with dark blotches. These are intended to protect the moth from birds and other predators who take red as a danger signal.

On one occasion, the moth emerged while we were out. I always left the top off the jar so they could escape but this one had found herself confined within the house. She had glued a set of tiny green eggs to the side of the settee.

Sometimes, the moth would not have emerged before we were due to go on holiday, so the jam jar went with us. One year we went to stay with my sister in a small village in Cardiganshire. My mother fell ill and, while she was recovering, I attended the village school for a term. I had two caterpillar jars with me and Mr Griffiths, one of the schoolmasters, heard about them and asked me to bring them to school. One of the moths had emerged, leaving behind its broken pupa case. Mr Griffiths was most interested. For my part, I was amazed to find that I, a townee, knew more about moths than the village children did. It is one of those curious things that those who live surrounded by the wonders of nature are often those who know least about it.

I’m glad to say that the antibiotics seem to have done the trick as I am feeling better and the symptoms have diminished.

Ironically, my worst day was Thursday, after I had seen the dentist and started taking the pills. My gum above the troublesome tooth was swollen and my throat was sore enough to make swallowing uncomfortable. I felt cold and feeling cold always makes me miserable.

Today (Friday), I seem to have turned the corner, so to speak. The swelling has diminished, my throat is no longer sore and “I feel better in myself”, as my mother would have said. I can look forward to the weekend.

Of course, I still have to see my usual dentist on Tuesday and find out what he thinks about the tooth that caused the trouble. Is it as bad as the stand-in dentist suggested? That is a cloud on the horizon that I will try to ignore until the moment arrives.

When I reached the dentist’s surgery around 9 am, I found the reception area, which doubles as a waiting room, crowded. This is explained by the fact that this dentist, unlike my usual one, runs a walk-in service.

As I expected, I was asked to fill in a form detailing my state of health and to pay the standard NHS fee of £22.70. (Unlike the rest of the NHS, dental treatment is not free and there is a scale of charges, unless you are on Income Support, in which case there is no charge. Most dentists now treat clients both on the NHS and privately. The client can also mix NHS and private treatment.)

In view of the large number of people, I prepared myself for a long wait. (I have mentioned before that being treated by the NHS schools you in patience!) I was pleasantly surprised to be called about 45 minutes after I arrived. I was instructed to go to the first floor (that’s the second floor in American 😉 ). Here I found a second waiting room but tarried here only short while before being collected by a nurse and conducted to a treatment room.

I was attended to by a young male dentist who was polite and friendly. He examined my whole mouth and took an X-ray of the affected area.

He diagnosed what I had suspected, namely an infection which was the source of the pain. This was caused by a tooth suffering decay which would need root canal work, if it can be saved, or extraction if not. He prescribed antibiotic pills which should reduce the infection and thereby the pain. We left it that I would seek follow-up treatment from my own dentist with whom I have an appointment for next Tuesday.

Home now, I have taken the first pill and am waiting hopefully for the pain to subside.

If anyone requires evidence that the universe and life on earth are not created by a rational mind, I offer teeth as the killer argument. I can hardly imagine a better example of a failed design than teeth.