A bit of calm, then a bit of storm...

It sometimes feels as if Colby Woodland Garden is our second home. It is only a 20 minute drive due south from the Preselis, and only the vaguest hint of sunshine compels us there. So we found ourselves there on Saturday with the lovely woodland paths to ourselves. We no longer need a map to navigate the maze of hilly paths and H and R just love to race ahead up little steps and around corners watching out for squirrels and hobbits.

But Saturday was the calm before the storm. R5 had been complaining of a sore gum and on Sunday she woke up looking like a hamster who had stuffed a football into the pocket of its cheek. A few phone calls later found us in Tenby Cottage Hospital with a dentist instead of in Theatr Mwldan watching The Secret of Moonacre. It transpires that R5 has an abscess underneath a molar and must have the offending tooth extracted under general anaesthetic in Swansea.

Fine (actually not fine, but anyway) here enters the politics of dental treatment in Pembrokeshire. My sister is a dentist and, until recently, has been taking care of our teeth. But she is in Sheffield and now H and R are no longer babies and have commitments such as school, zooming off up the motorway spending gold-plated unleaded is becoming less appealing. So much less appealing in fact, that we haven't darkened the doorway of my sister's surgery since February 2007. Instead I have been looking for a local dentist since before Christmas and the best I have been offered is to be put on a waiting list of 12 to 18 months. Sadly R5's teeth couldn't wait.

Each time I have admitted that we haven't seen a dentist for over two years to a dentist/dental nurse/local health board person/dental surgery receptionist I feel as if I am waving a big banner which reads: I AM A BAD MOTHER. Each time I look at my little hamster-jawed five-year-old I beat myself over the head with said banner. But time has, well, passed. And we missed the fact that all was not well tooth-wise inside R5's mouth. Even my sister from her lofty position of dental knowledge suggested that the marks visible on R5's teeth were "staining caused by your water, are-you-using-the-correct-toothpaste-and-brushing-properly?"

The position today is that R5 is on antibiotics and painkillers. We cannot register with a dentist because they are all full. I have phoned and left messages with various people who have the power to admit us to dental treatment and my sister has e-mailed someone she met on a course who works in Pembrokeshire.

Now we can do is wait for a dentist to find a gap in their busy schedule to accommodate at least R5, if not the rest of us (I fear to look inside any other mouths in case further nightmares lurk within) wait for the antibiotics to work their magic and worry about impending general anaesthesia.

Bugger.