Things for which to be grateful.

If you thought you had a bad weekend, spare a thought for my dentist.

I ran into her yesterday when I was getting a coffee and, at first, I didn't recognise her as she cheerily greeted me.

A few beats later it dawned on me who the nice woman was.

'Oh hi! Sorry, I'm a moron, it's just you're not wearing blue and you don't have weapons of mass destruction in your hand. I just thought someone in the office had planted a "Say-hello-to-Kate" note on my back.'

As I know she works 8 - 3, I asked her if she was playing hooky, which was when she told me that she'd had a bit of a rough weekend.

'It's was a bit of a 'mare.I had real stomach pains, so went to hospital and they thought it was an appendicitis. So they sent me off to theatre, opened me up, discovered my appendix were fine, so closed me back up again.'

And then she chased it up with, 'And the doctor looked like he was about twelve, so I was pretty happy when I woke up!' She then proceeded to get the giggles so badly that she looked like she'd blown a stitch. (I sympathised, it's so hard to un-get the giggles once you've got them).

So, if you're feeling like you've had a rough time, console yourself in the fact that - at least -'unnecessary surgery' isn't up there on the list with 'can't pay the power bill' or 'job doing my head in'.