There had better be a goodly sum of money under my pillow to make this worthwhile

I need to go to the dentist. I could blame Simon, since he recently broached the subject first, but I doubt the chunk of filling that just popped out of a tooth of mine can be directly attributed to him, so that would hardly be fair. On the other hand I may not let that stop me.

I have no great love of dentists. It's my own fault naturally, since I didn't appreciate the necessity of good dental care as a child, and despite the best efforts of those around me, I'm not certain I ever really made the connection between dental hygiene and my increasing number of fillings until it was too late. Were I to mount any sort of a defense, I'd likely claim that my tribulations were far from atypical when compared to those of the average Scottish child. We like our sweeties in Scotland. Still, I consider it a lesson learned, and I'm far more careful when it comes to taking care of my teeth nowadays... although I rarely attend the dentist unless it's completely unavoidable, usually when something starts hurting. Fortunately that's not the case this time, though at my last appointment several years back the dentist advised me I had several fillings in need of replacement in the near future. I'm assuming that future is now.

I am slightly nervous about the whole affair, although the fact that Simon's experiences were largely positive is rather reassuring. My only problem is that I've no idea how to find a good dentist. I've discovered one practice that's located only a short walk from where I presently live, and it has the added bonus that it's taking on new patients - I was surprised to discover that most of the others in any sort of reasonable proximity are refusing new adult patients. Of course, this has left me wondering if that's only because the quality of this practice is suspect. Still, I found it through the NHS, so I'm hoping (possibly against hope) that offers some sort of guarantee of... well, if not excellence, then at least adequacy. I'll find out tomorrow, I suppose.

Of course, there's only one question I really want to know the answer to anyway: Is it safe?