This is a tale of near misses and lessons learnt. It starts in the dental chair.

One of the less charming aspects of advancing age is losing one’s teeth.

I seem to spend an increasing amount of time with the local (excellent) dentist, where he does his best to salvage the remnants of my original dentition.

I can’t complain really. Some of these teeth have been with me for 70 years, and there’s not much else I own that has lasted that long.