No beating about the bush here - by 2 o'clock yesterday I was feeling like death again so ended up sleeping for an hour and a half before (luckily) Joan phoned and woke me up. I think it did the job as I then lasted until bed time. I don't remember the first lot being this draining - I am still feeling a bit groggy today but I think curling up under the desk for 40 winks would be frowned upon. The main jaw throb has subsided now and all I can feel is a general stinging pain from the area of the cuts/stitches instead. Plus almost able to touch my cheek without wincing (which made shaving possible again).

Still, am off work again tomorrow for a flexi-day. Joan has a meeting in Bury so I have volunteered to take her. Very good of me I think. So we can have a bit of a lay in and I can relax when we get back (she has to go in to work). Of ocurse while relaxing I have to prepare some stuff for the appraisal that I didn't manage to do over the weekend through being asleep.

And another year has passed without Wimbledon-watching. The most I managed was 10 minutes on Friday while I was waiting for my jaw to go numb (these posh private dentists with tvs in their rooms). Can't say I'm surprised to see Henman not win again though. I wonder if we will ever have champions at half the sports we invented in this country again. And from the race reports it is just possible that Formula 1 is beginning to get interesting again so I might give a stab at watching the next race. Which I think will be the British GP so worth a look in any event.

In lucid moments I managed to finish the engineering history book yesterday. Not really what I was expecting but interesting anyway, if a bit technical. I shall have to look elsewhere though for a more in-depth study of how they built some of the grand structures of antiquity. Have now embarked on a mammoth re-read in the fiction department - Julian May's Exile/Galactic Milieu saga (9 books in all if you count the companion to the first four, 10 if you are reading the US versions) with book one: The Many-Coloured Land. I originally came across these in the mid-eighties and re-read the first 6 several times while waiting for the last three to turn up, but not read those since they did finally appear in the early '90s so it will be a mix of the very and slightly familiar. Definitely enjoying getting re-acquainted with the concepts and characters after at least 8 years absence. I think I will still slip in the non-fiction titles between each book though. Got to keep the brain ticking over.