I went to the dentist yesterday for a check-up. He told me that one of my old fillings needs redoing, and there's a possibility that I may have to have another wisdom tooth removed. He relieved me of one last June, after which I walked down the road in a stupor and bought a banjolele. I'm still not entirely sure why. Anyway, this next extraction will apparently be "exactly the same" (so I'll have to get another guitar stand), but with the added option of him doing it without anaesthetic.

Apparently the government have written to my dentist and suggested that to save the NHS money, he should give everyone the option of having their teeth removed without anaesthetic. That's what I call patient choice. Unfortunately, since offering the agony option, he hasn't yet found a single person willing to try it. And I wasn't about to be the first. It's no wonder the NHS is strapped for cash.

Personally though, I feel the magazines in the waiting room are a good substitute. They certainly dulled my senses.

I ended up reading the March issue of Pick Me Up, which brought me down, thanks to their 'Photo Psychic' section, in which Mystic Mary claims to be able to sense your destiny just by looking at your photo. My favourite letter was the one on the left.

It's reassuring to know that we live in a world populated by people who are willing to write in to a magazine in the hope of getting in touch with a dead budgie. And yes, you read that right: the budgie sends his love.

Anyhoo, psychic teeth aside, yesterday was an interesting day. In addition to baby supplies, I needed to get some more visitor parking permits from the council. They're a pound each, and allow a non-resident to park outside my flat for one day. The council will sell you a maximum of fifty per year, so you can only have one visitor a week. It's like being in prison.

Unfortunately, it turned out that for reasons unknown, the council parking office in Brighton isn't selling them at the moment, so I had to drive over to Hove Town Hall, where I queued up, handed the man my proof of residency, filled in a form, and... was told I'd bought fifty on July 10th last year, and can't have any more until Thursday. If only I'd read my own blog. It's down there in black and white.

But on the plus side, when I got home I looked on the council website to see if you can order them by post, and it turns out you can. Unfortunately I also discovered that as of April 1st this year (so it's probably some kind of joke), the price has doubled, and they now cost £2 each. Frankly my visitors can pay & display from now on.

But amidst all of that, Lisa and I have ordered one of these. I'm not sure if the baby comes with it. It's a special towel which not only dries her after bathtime, but also allows you to tie her up so she can't escape. I'm thinking of getting one for Lisa.

As it turned out, our trip to Mothercare yesterday afternoon was a complete waste of time. The Brighton branch is half the size of the Crawley one, and all the items we'd seen on Saturday and subsequently decided to buy, were nowhere to be seen. After ten minutes of fruitless searching we decided to go home and order everything from the website instead. And when I say everything, I mean everything. If you hear a mighty rumble coming from the south coast this week, it's the juggernaut delivering our baby stuff.