Is it just ME?

Or has the dentist suddenly become a top day out!

AS THE hygienist tenderly takes my temperature, sanitises my hands and passes me a mask and gloves in a little bag, I nearly weep.

This — more than going to the hairdresser, walks in the park or a meal outdoors with friends — makes me feel I really am re-entering the world post-Covid.

My name is Liz and I hate going to the dentist. The early years were terrible. A legacy of 1970s extractions (when they knocked you out with gas), a brace, veneers and terrible metal fillings. Once I didn’t go for five years in protest.

But then on a work assignment, I met Dr Uchenna Okoye, cosmetic dentist to the stars, and realised it was worth hurling my bank balance at the problem.

I still hate the experience in the chair of course.

But over the years she’s made me floss and invest in a rainbow of dental brushes.

Then bang, back in March my hygiene appointment was cancelled as dentists were forced to close.

I should have been overjoyed. Here was my get-out-of-jail-free pass. I calculated I’d save hundreds of pounds. But then I realised with sinking heart, no one else would care so passionately about my midlife gums.

By July I’m chewing on one side. Cautiously. And gargling bottles of mouthwash. Returning to the practice this week has literally saved my sanity.

I’m swabbed, scraped, polished — a slow, methodical process carried out by ghostly figures in PPE. After 100 days without human touch, it feels like love.

I still absolutely hate the dentist, but I’m overjoyed to be back.

I still absolutely hate the dentist, but I’m overjoyed to be back