Kates Journal

I should perhaps have given the Codeine and brufen and ‘mol more time to work; by the time I got to the hospital i was debating returning straight home, but having forked out 7.50 for a taxi (I didn’t think I could bear a bus ride both ways) I felt kinda obliged. Not broken, very swollen was the answer.

The Codeine plus bus plus taxi has left me feeling pretty attrocious though. Although I saw tons of Slough I’d never seen before (that’s got to be the most indirect bus route ever) and also found a very ratty looking BMW Isetta sat on a driveway (careful john). Anyhow, I’m letting myself have the rest of the day off anyway (most ‘cos I promised Kathryn (and I can’t hold anything properly, and I feel really quite sick))… so, yes.

I have spent some time taking photos of the 1963 paper I found in the wall of the now gone bathroom… It’s far too degraded to keep, but it’s got a few interesting ads. It’s a Daily Mirror, by the way.

So, I got lots done yesterday; I headed to B&Q early and en-route I found someone who’d demolished a wall; thereby sourcing a lot of bricks, possibly even enough to do the path. he was quite happy for me to grab them, along with an old brabantia-style bin – which is somewhat of an improvement on the grey plastic one with no lid we’ve been using. So, I turned round, headed home and took the car over to B&Q so I could get a wheelbarrow.

Having made about 4 or 5 wheelbarrow trips I’d got certainly the majority of the whole bricks. They, incidentally weighed quite a lot. Then I painted the woodwork upstairs which is prep for tiling that last few feet (probably 5 sq foot or so) and started work on the bathroom wall. Now, it started well, and I managed to get the majority of it down without incident. But there was one bitty little incident near the end. Hence the codeine.

In the process of removing the door-frame from the old bathroom I slipped applying pretty much all of the force I can muster to the act of smacking my hand against a thin sharp piece of plaster. I cut my hand, surprisingly perhaaps not enough to need stitches; but it’s the pain that’s a killer. Enough that I’ve been debating getting it X-rayed today. I’ve buddy/neighbour strapped my two fingers, and taken codeine+paracetamol (CoCodamol) and Ibrufen. I took that about half an hour ago. Having looked, I now am wondering if the knuckle is slightly depressed (all nurses are hypochondriacs), so I might get showered and head over to the hospital. That and I’d've expected some relief from the analgesia, not much (it’s a bit quick for that), but some. Arse.

So, I decided to kill time watching ‘Fatherland’; for those of you who don’t know, Fatherland is an excellent novel which is set in a future in which Hitler won the second world war; continued extermination of the Jewish people, and in which America has a right wing president, and the Soviet Union continues to fight the might of the new German empire.

It is, in fact, a truly excellent book; chilling and well written, especially to those of us who had it drilled into us at school that the war was won by luck and 3 days (the German tactic of destroying the RAF would have worked had they continued for about 3 more days; after which we’d've run out of pilots). I heard an interview with the author of Fatherland in which he said he regretted selling the rights to it; and disliked the film. And had always vaguely wondered what it was like. So I watched it.

Meh, read the book. The film is far too short, the characters just, well, the whole thing doesn’t feel believeable and it doesn’t have the texture of the book. My dad always used to say that the pictures were better on the Radio, and I’ve always kind of mentally extended this to books. Books have the best effects, too. And the Berlin of Albert Speer really feels deeply real in the book, but like much else it really doesn’t come across in the film.

So, there you go. I can’t decide if I think it’s really a bad film, or if it’s really an okay made-for-tv movie but it just doesn’t compare to the book…

So, with the exception of a few days of shifting, I’ve got the next two weeks off, and you can safely assume that whatever my intentions I will end up updating this journal – probably more than once a day on more than one day. Today you get the added benefit of deranged ramblings from my 20 (so far) hours of awakeness. It’s funny, apart from my stomach feeling rather grumpy I’m actually feeling pretty together. Leave me anywhere long enough and I’ll probably fall asleep; but so long as I keep myself at least faintly entertained my brain’s working really shockingly well. At least I think it is. It’s hard to say. I don’t expect things to get really hazy until around 9 or 10 this evening.

Anyhow, so I’ve made a start on the week’s work. The radiator in the lounge has had it’s joints tightened. Let’s go and look shall we? Bother; it looks like one end has stopped leaking, but I think the other end hasn’t. Irritatingly, this is the most expensive radiator in the house, and it looks like the pipework needs more PTFE tape. This would, obviously, be annoying. Not completely, insanely annoying. Just annoying. It’d mean draining that one radiator, undoing the joint and re-wrapping it in PTFE before reassembling. Ironically, the 1940s/50s bathroom radiator seems to be okay. Ah, plumbing, what fun.

I’ve also ‘ooped’ one lot (about four small bags) of rubble generated by demolishing a wall domestic waste and of course surrepticiously covered it up with one bag of rubbish from the kitchen. I’ve run the cardboard to the local recycling doojit, along with a couple of bags-worth of plastic bottles. I’ve also taken Brick down to the local Jetwash, and in a stunning act of dedication to the idea of getting the salt off the poor car sat there queuing for half an hour to use the sodding thing.

I may have upset them by using the ‘hot foam brush’ when it was neither hot, nor foamy, to remove shite from the car while using their cheapest wash cycle. I also topped up brick’s oil (first time in 3,000 miles) and coolant. It was nice just to get outside in the sun for a bit. I’m too tired to really appreciate it, but the feeling of sun on my skin, even though it was flipping cold, was just nice.

I also spent several minutes taking Macro shots of the Viva’s salt-covered state before washing ‘im (does that count as work?). I’ve rung the nursing agency I want to work with and need to check when Kathryn wants to holiday so as I can book an interview. It’s frustratingly far away…

I think I’ll have a break for a bit and then I may start reassembling the back bedroom, which is the one which suffered most from radiator leakages. Most of the contents of this room landed up in the main bedroom, and having had it there for a week both Kathryn and I feel that it’s disturbing the old-lady asthetic of the front room, and needs to go back to it’s home in the back bedroom (she may not have described it quite in those terms)…

Anyhow. Off I go to waste more time :)

At least, not a Kate.

So, yet another batch of nights over and done with; and yes, I am glad. Though they were by no means the worst set of nights; and I really mean that. I’ve had sets of nights where getting from work ot the house seemed like an unimaginably complex task because I was so tired. Instead, I only had the one slightly scary drive home and that was really because the traffic was surprisingly bad.

It was however frustrating; Kathryn’s been off for Half term, and I am now off while she’s back at work. But at least our April shifts line up. I’ve had some awesome patients this week though; the 80plus year old who’s probably fitter than me and who seemed to be very much in love with his wife. His wife seemed equally devoted to him and it was just *wonderful* to look after them. Cups of tea were doled out and much chatting was had.

And there was the woman who we’d switched over to TLC (Tender Loving Care), and who we were letting quietly die who decided to whip off her oxygen mask, pop out the gudeal airway, and announced that she’d just had a really nice sleep. She was still incredibly sick last I saw her, but alive, which was one heck of a shock.

And then there’s been coming home. Coming home to the woman I love in a house that’s warm. Having showers. So, for those of you who’ve never lived without central heating or central air, or whatever you call the forced air heating you have in the states. Who’ve not spent a winter (or indeed 2) coming home to a house that’s the same temperature as outside, more or less, and who’ve not then lit a fire and lurked as close as possible….

How to describe the joy, the pure joy of coming home to a warm house. I got home in the mornings this week and I could just curl up in a nice warm bed. And then I could get up and have a shower in a warm bathroom. I didn’t feel like I was freezing my arse off; and the bearings on the electricity meter have taken much less of a thrashing since we’ve not been running fan heaters and immersion heaters constantly. There is currently an oil-filled radiator in the kitchen, because the radiator’s not fitted there yet (because there’s a wall in the way!), but apart from that the house is entirely heated by the boiler (that we couldn’t really afford).

I’ve got one radiator that needs it’s joints tightening, and there were a few huge leaks when it was all connected up (poor Kathryn had to deal with it because I was off at work), but all in all it’s been pretty good :)

And the shower. Oh yay, the shower is joy. Standing up in a hot stream of water? It’s great. I am quite proud. I just hope my workmanship is up to the task.This week I’ve got various jobs that need doing, the radiator being one of them, the wall in the kitchen another, channelling the cabing in, in the kitchen another; sorting out the seemingly dead G5 mac, oh and also fixing the laptop so I can let my mum have it, fixing the G3 laptop so I can use it, oh and putting up the last few tiles in the bathroom…

Ah, holidays are so relaxing :)