Kates Journal

So, I had this faint intention of writing about the holiday in great depth, because it was a fantastic holiday filled with awesome.

But I’m too tired to do that. So, rather than wait until I forget about it I’ll sketch it for you shiny people, and then give you a link to some pics…

Day 1 was mostly spent travelling; the traffic was okay, I think; Brick performed flawlessly, apart from a weld on the exhaust failing as we off-roaded up to the hostel. Actually, it wasn’t as bad as the coniston one by any means, the track up is pretty rough though. We landed up at the hostel fairly late in the evening – and despite failing light took a little wander up towards Red Tarn / Helvellyn… the air was just so clean. It’s amazing, you forget what real, fresh air smells like.

Day 2 and we headed for a nice light easy walk; easing ourselves in – Kathryn had new (unbroken in) boots, and I am well out of practice with walking, so we walked down the mountain to Glenridding; and after a brief detour to buy waterproofs for me (because I’m a dizzy mare and forgot them) we headed  out to the ferry to get the ’steamer’ (diesel, these days) to Howtown. From there the plan was to walk back around Ullswater, one of the Wainright walks; sadly there were about 3,000,000 people also with this plan, so instead we decided to nip up Hallin fell. Hallin fell took exception to being ‘nipped’ up; and we got rained and hailed on, sheltering behind the obelisk at the top. Once done with the rain and hail, and my boots having disintegrated, we headed down and (squelched) around Ullswater and the weather went back to being rather lovely.

Day 3 – and we headed to Keswick. Keswick is where most of my youth holidays were spent; so feels kinda home-y; we wandered around many bookshops, a few sweet shops, and also did some (of the vast number of) mountaineering shops (to replace my boots and get a knee support and a trecking pole (or stick, as I insist on calling it)). We also found a truly excellent cafe called the Lakeland Peddlar. My, that was some good food… And I also availed myself of Keswick’s exhaust repair facilities. Brick’s re-welded exhaust remained trouble free…but when we arrived to collect Brick there was a chap who, well, let’s say he was very excited to see an HC Viva still on the road. He all-but bounced, and asked to sit in the car (so I opened the door and let him have a sit inside)….
Day 4 – Helvellyn. The weather looked hideous when we started out; but the report said that the clouds would lift and the rain would stop and the sun would shine. And y’know what; it was true. When we were walking up Helvellyn we stood about 200 meters from Red Tarn and didn’t know it was there; and had to guess at which path was the one we wanted. We didn’t bother doing Catstye Cam (which we were going to do) because, well, we couldn’t see it. Anyhow, 3118 feet up, and the weather cleared a couple of times for us; giving us some truly breathtaking views. And by the time we were crossing Striding Edge it’d become a glorious day. We opted to walk across Grisedale Brow (where I shot my quick bit of abandonment; this dam), and down into Glenridding – where we would grab a pub meal before making the treck back up to the Hostel.

Day 4 – And we decided on a nice, relaxing day; visiting the museum in Ambleside; and wandering around many bookshops in Ambleside where we chanced upon a very informal, very friendly poetry night. It was excellent, and very friendly; and I deeply wish it existed in Slough. Anyhow, if you’re ever in Ambleside the poetic justice poetry night is well worth it.

Day 5 – We headed to the Potfest – a place where we could both have spent vastly too much money. There was some beautiful ceramic art and pottery there; some of it very reasonably priced. Some of it while reasonably priced also very expensive, and some of it oh-my-god-expensive :)

And then we headed to Bristol, but that’s a story for another post.

Anyhow, here’s the pics…

It appears Kathryn’s been delayed, so as I fill time waiting for her to arrive…

From the BBC news site, they’ve clearly employed some specialists in stating the obvious:

BBC weather forecaster Kirsty McCabe said: “We have had some quite extraordinary rainfall.”

Well, I never. Really? It’s unusual to have landslides and have our towns underwater? That’s not normal? Gosh.

And from the highways agency this startling piece of information:

“The Highways Agency has warned rain and spray can reduce visibility”

Good lord, really?

So, I had one of the most surreal mornings in the ED that I’ve ever had. From kicking out the two patients who were there when I arrived (at 0700) until 1100 I didn’t see a patient.

I was then, going to rant about the fact that there’s this one nurse at work who while nice to me with everyone else seems to like to attack me whenever she takes over any of my patients; and the 30 seconds with her made me feel like crap for my entire journey home. Hell, I’ve been sat here alternately ranting and wanting to curl up because of what she said. Mostly ranting, because as I’ve thought about it I’ve realised that yes; I didn’t do the bloke’s resps for the 25 minutes he was in my care. But the fact he’d not had obs written on his chart? Well, I’d done them, they’re recorded on the nice machine, and given that she didn’t bother to hand him over to me, nor give me any help, and that I’d done her a favour by ECGing him (he was having some sort of cardiac event), and organised, and moved him to the Resus room; I’d given the drugs he needed and so on…

…She can sit, and indeed swivel. Yes, I should have done his resps, but quite frankly, he needed drugs I’d never given before and I needed to check doses and routes and side effects and indeed what they did before giving them. The fact he had no obs recorded for an hour? That’s *not* my fault, I had him in resus for 25 minutes. The time before that? She should’ve done and recorded them, thanks very much. ‘course it must be hard being so perfect all the time.

Anyhow, the whining though is much reduced by the fact that I’ve just discovered that my mum’s house is flooded out and I’ve got to head down there to see what we can save / recover / how bad it is. Wish me luck.

So, today was a bit insane. At least, I thought it was insane.

I’m not sure why, but the nurse in charge decided I should be 1st in in Resus. This was actually good, in a lot of ways; because I much more enjoy and am much better when I’m thrown in at the deep end.

But it was scary++ because, well, not only do I have only a limited clue as to what I’m doing; but also I’ve got next to no Emergency skills. I can’t take blood (although hopefully I can do my assessment this week), I can’t give IV’s unsupervised, I can’t cannulate, and I can’t plaster….

So it was a bit interesting. I got very good at saying “could you possibly…”

And “no, but I’ll get someone who can”.

Thankfully someone much more experienced came in for the Trauma call (a chap with extensive burns). And I stuck to my chest pains, and self-harmers. I did meet a genuine bona-fide gangster; at least according to himself… I must admit when he self discharged I really didn’t care that much…

After my shift I drove home, although there was a brief pause because Brick randomly decided he didn’t like the rust syrup masquerading as coolant, and thus spat it out. I’ve only seen a car-spitting-out-coolant-old-style once before (Nikki’s Mog) and it’s quite impressive. There was steam pouring (and I do mean pouring) out from the bonnet, from the back of the bonnet (where the vents are) and when I opened it there was a whoosh of more steam. So I shall *change* the coolant before heading up North; although I shan’t flush it.

It seemed fine after slopping some fresh coolant in so it was probably a stuck thermostat. But I shall be paranoid’ly observing it.

I finally, incidentally, got my shot in for Snapshot Hunter; ‘ve stuck it below, and I’m quite pleased with it… I’ve got a whole bundle more from the weekend with Kathryn, but I shall maybe upload them tomorrow.

And to take you into the evening, here’s some links: Funny. Scary.

So, I mentioned the oil leak, but I didn’t mention the coolant. The coolant in the Viva appears to be made by a careful process of combining iron oxide and stale water, and then leaving it standing for; say; 5 or 10 years.
This is obviously less than ideal. i have, in fact, since I had the car, been intending to flush the cooling system with some coolant flush and then change it for nice fresh shiny coolant. I may even do it twice.

However, doing so before the trip to the Lakes whilst it seems in many ways a great plan (big stressful journey) invites my paranoia gremlin to pop out. See, last time I took Rebecca to the lakes, and just prior to the trip I flushed the coolant. The car then developed a leak (presumably some shifting bit of rust free’d it) and then in desparation I threw rad-weld in. Rad weld combined the remaining rust to clog up an already knackered coolant line and I got a very dead engine.

So, paranoia says ‘don’t fiddle with it, it’s working’. So I’ve decided not to. Who can say if it’s the right decision. But since the coolant will probably have to be drained for the oil-leak-solution then I may save it for then.

Completely unrelated to that is the fact that I made Raspberry and Apple crumble. Well. We’ll see if I made it, if it’s hideous I’ve just wasted nearly 500g of Raspberries. Sadly since they were picked at the weekend, quite a lot of them had gone manky. I think actually it’s because a few of them were just beyond perfectly ripe; and having turned into moudlyberries they were in close contact with many other berries. In the end I think almost 1/4 were inedible. Or at least, I chose not to trust them. Hence it becoming Raspberry and Apple crumble.

I’m just waiting on dinner coming out of the oven; then the oven needs to cool down a bit; and then I shall have pie!

Well, crumble.

It’s weird to cook after so long not cooking. And nice. I miss having a nice kitchen; but frankly I’ve got sod all to complain about really. In fact there’s been some good house news; the woodworm is apparently not active enough to be worth treating. He reckoned it’s an old infestation with some residual activity; basically. And that all houses this age will have that kind of level of activity; most of it where you can’t see. Given the doubled joists, it’s not worth treating it, apparently. I may treat the bits I can still get to,  anyhow.

I’ve also started grouting. I’d forgotten that I really don’t enjoy grouting much. How I could forget this I’m not sure, but I had. Still, about 1/3rd of the floor is grouted, the last tile is cut and down… So, all is good.