Tooth ache and preparation for UK trip

The last weekend before our UK trip should have been a nice wind down with J back from his overseas trips and everything coming together. We had a lovely evening on the Friday when Helen and John came round for a meal and I was able to return some of their hospitality. Then on Saturday we had a lovely trip to the beach, had lunch watching the end of the Abu Dhabi Triathlon and a good swim - all strange to think that we would soon be back in the UK in March and not the kind of weather for beaches or sea swimming. However, during the course of the day my mouth started to hurt and by Sunday morning my face had swelled up and I was in serious agony.
You've got to hand it to the health service round here - I got a Dr's appointment for lunchtime and once she'd decided it was definitely tooth related she sent me straight down to see a dentist in the same hospital who I was able to see with just 20 minutes waiting. The dentist sent me straight for a pain killing injection (in a slightly embarassing place but it was well worth the indigity) and gave me a presciption for two kinds of anitbiotics and an appointment to return the next morning. X-rays were done in the same hospital on the spot and linked back to the dentist surgery via computer. Surprisingly the dentists were most complimentary of the UK dentist's root canal work and could find no reason for the huge abscess which had formed deep in the root so decided to do nothing but let the anti biotics deal with the infection. So far it has fixed it so I'm keeping everything crossed that I don't have to go back for a replacement root canal but I know I'll be in good hands if I do have to. This was all covered, bar 20%, by our health insurance which was even better. The main downside was a pretty severe reaction to one set of anti biotics which left me suffering a bit for several days and an embarrassing throwing up episode outside the business class check in but great faith in the Abu Dhabi health system.
In the middle of all of this I was also trying to get everything tidied up in order to be away for a bit but fortunately I can rely on Nidal to pick things up and she took over my 'to do' list very efficiently. I spent the last day redoing one of the ad agency contracts for one of the subsidiaries and at last felt like I had been able to make a useful contribution.
We headed for Manchester on the flight which leaves Abu Dhabi in the wee small hours which is a little painful, but despite my infirmities I managed to force down the obligatory glass of pre take off champagne - purely medicinal of course!