Kates Journal

So, it’s been a busy and at times stressful (still going on) ol’ time here at Chez Us.

The larder is, actually, floored. I do still need to throw some white paint on the door frame, but that’s it. I’m really pleased with it. The DAF which has been up for sale for 2 weeks and garnered no interest at all (I would take some pictures, but they’re seriously depressing) – I may have to fix it and e-bay it. I’ll throw a coat of white paint on it too.

Today marked, however, a genius moment. Inspiration and understanding (of a sort) struck. My bike has been limping up and down the motorway at 60 mph. Odd, I thought, since the engine’s just rebuilt and it’s all new and shiny. I’d been thinking to myself – perhaps the timing is off. Maybe the mixture’s wrong. Perhaps it needs a hotter plug. Then today it struck me.

I was riding along this morning contemplating the drizzle falling on me, my cold arse, and the fact that I really could fancy having a bike with a decent saddle, and also perhaps a bike with third gear, when I thought…

‘What could cause my bike to perform in a very similar manner to my old bike’?

I’d thought this before and then brushed such silly thoughts aside with the fact that this is a newly rebuilt engine and gearbox (never mind the missing third gear, natch). That the electrics, electronics and such are entirely different. That it doesn’t burn gearbox oil, and nor does petrol find it’s way into the lubricating areas of the gearbox.

And then the little tiny 10 watt bulb that is, on occasion, my brain lit up. It sparkled dimly in the dirt grey sky that was the morning.

The fracking carb. The carb came off my old bike because the carb that was on the new engine, that I knew worked with the new engine was blocked and I couldn’t figure out where. And I thought ‘well, I wanted to use the Bing carb (off my old bike) anyway because it’s better than the BvF carb (from the new bike). Gah.

So, nights off, I shall have to see if I can make the BvF carb work and thence fit it and see if I can go places quicker.

The stress, however, hasn’t really come from this. It’s come from a potential visit to the civil claim court being organised by the current possessor of my mum’s EV. We took it to him for some work, when it got there he stated it would ‘probably’ be beyond his original quote so we agreed that he would take out the controller, examine the rest of the vehicle and come back with a revised quote. This he did. Then it all starts to go the shape of a pear. We said stop, he didn’t, and now he wants money for work that he won’t warranty and so far has declined to tell me where the car actually is so that we can retrieve it. I’ve had to fork out for legal advice now, and now I understand where we’re at, I’ve got to get the EV on Sunday. So that’s a whole bundle of fun coming.

And after the disaster that was the Charles Ware ‘restoration’ (the front has outdone the back in terms of being actually dangerous*) I’ve restarted the process of taking them to the small claims court. This is less than relaxing for me… I’ve contacted Watchdog about them this time…

Anyhow.

In other news I’ve been playing with Delicious Library – in an attempt to achieve the utopian state of being in a bookstore and being able to find out if I’ve got any particular obscure tome I’m looking at. While I only really need it for ’series’ (like xxxHolic, Discworld, the VI Warshawski / Sara Paretsky novels, etc, etc) I’ve been working through entering all the books we own (yes, seriously) into it. Annoyingly the iPhone plugin has been removed by Amazon (DAMN THEM!) which is funny because I could be easily persuaded into buying more books that way. I hope that changes, but for the meantime I’ll be abusing a little corner of my website at some point. I need, of course, to do some upgrades to the underbelly of pyoor, but hopefully once that’s done we’ll be ready to rock and roll with a searchable book and eventually music and film database.

Finally, in news, my Nursing Registration in Canada is slowly progressing, my CV is updated and needs proofreading and then I’ll be sending it off. It’s all becoming a bundle of scary (I mean exciting).

* Bulkhead tie plates not welded at all – just seam-sealed to the tie plates; flitch panel just tack-welded to A post area. Whole hinge pillar flopping about like a goldfish out of water**, chassis legs incorrectly welded – and cracked as a result, the sill was an inch out of alignment… etc, etc…
** Explains the hinge breaking, the whole pillar had moved.

So, driving back from dropping off documents at the solicitors… Nice bloke tells me how wonderful the DAF is.

…

…about a mile from home CRACK! BANG! SCRAPE scraaaaape scrape.

The exhaust has snapped in half.

Home: Tax bike: Find bike gear: Charge battery: Pray.

Anyone want a DAF 44?

Never trust a company without a written quote. Always confirm spoken agreements in writing.

Fuck [redacted] and also fuck [redacted]. Now I have to spend money on solicitors.

END.

One of the things that comes up, particularly after a few days of triage is that England, or at least the bits of it I’ve encountered, appear to have a problem with entitlement.

Now I was unfortunate, due to the skill mix being a bit less than it could be, and us being extraordinarily* busy I ended up triaging a lot. Really, a lot. To the point where what is termed an ‘inappropriate attendance’** really really tested my abilites with professionalism***. Anyhow. This front-loading of the system meant that those poor souls who should have been there (not that many) and who actually needed treatment (even fewer) were sometimes left waiting quite a while.

The government in the UK stipulates that we must, in the emergency department, see, diagnose, and admit or treat/discharge within four hours of their booking in time. No matter if you’ve stubbed your toe and got a bit of an owie or suffered multiple trauma, 4 hours is all you’ve got****. This, when it takes up to 2 hours for blood results to return is not actually that long. Before this standard was applied, people stayed in the ED overnight, and I’m told by colleagues in other countries that 4 hours is actually really very quick in emergency department standards.

Which is why when people sit around for 2 hours and start to get stroppy I want to tell them a few things. I don’t, because I’m – at the end of the day – fond of my job, and my job is to behave in a professional manner.

But really. 2 hours? I can waste more time than that reading a paper.

People also seem to suffer under the delusion that their problem is more important than everyone elses, and that they should be seen before everyone else, and that 4 hours is just too damn long to wait. I understand that it’s not very interesting being in the ED. Well, frankly it can be quite entertaining, I suspect, as a spectator sport watching the many, many drunk people rocking up on nights.

But shouting at/cursing us and telling us that you pay your taxes does not serve to impress me. Especially when the UK ranks 18th in the world for it’s spending per-capita on healthcare. It’s cheap. It’s really *really* cheap. It’s incredible value for money.

And frankly, it needs more. Lots more.

Less managers.
More money.
More wards.
More beds.
More on the shop-floor staff.

We won’t get that though, because the greater population of the UK are sold lies about the NHS by the tabloid press, and largely, the population seems confused as to how much tax we pay. It turns out we’re not nearly as heavily taxed as even I thought. And I never thought we were *that* heavily taxed…

So.

Basically.

Yes, Shut your yappin’ is basically the point. That and take some frickin’ responsibility for your own healthcare. Jeeze. Learn something about that body you inhabit and try, at least try and look after it a very little bit.

Anyhow, sorry if that’s a bit incoherant, but I have been up 24 hours.

* a situation which is becoming depressingly ordinary
** true examples: ‘I’ve had this pain, here, for a few months… and it’s been bothering me… so I thought I should get it checked’ (at 4:30 in the *morning* at an *emergency department*?!). “I’ve had this pain in the side of my nose since this morning. Well, it’s more an ache. Or an itch. It’s been bothering me…” and “I’ve had a cold since yesterday, and I’ve taken this [waves X brand cold/flu medication] and I’m not better yet, so I thought I should come in”.
*** And of course, handily there’s always the young-person-with-rare-condition who you read the booking in complaint for, *sigh*, call in and then go ‘Oooh, you really are quite sick I best do something rather rapidly’ which reminds you of *why* you remain professional and do your job properly and don’t just say “Get thee hence! Begone foul abuser of our fine services!” when people appear to be inappropriately attending.
**** There is a clinical exception which I’ve seen applied all of once or twice – when it is actually unsafe to move the patient because the ED is the best place, clinically, for them to be.

Well, I forgot that I needed to go to the post office when I was making my list. Having put it up I instantly realised that my first job of the day was postofficing. So of I wandered. My original plan, such as it was, was to go into town; collect my contacts, my parcel and post stuff. But then I realised that I was knackered and really didn’t fancy it.

So I wandered there, and I wandered back. I read some of Makers, and I chatted to James, and then finally poked myself with the giant get-off-your-arse stick and went and dealt with the shower. The hot supply of which had managed to develop a very slow drip. I’m suspecting this is a case of thermal expansion/contraction because it’s been fine for over a year. A quick tighten and it seems to have stopped. Should have done it ages ago, really.

Then I decided to take on the kitchen tap. This was, I believed to be a simple disconnect and unscrew old tap; assemble, put in and connect new tap. Ye-es. I also believed that taps had a standard size hole in which they fitted. Apparently not. Because this tap was bigger than the hole. A bit of filing later and it fitted, but by then I’d munged the top-ends of the threads, which is where the “no, it definately isn’t a wiggle-it-and-it’ll-fit” realisation came to me. Thus I spent an inordinate amount of time under the sink turning the brass retaining nuts 1/8th of a turn with a spanner because they were just slightly too tight to turn by hand.

Knowing that I was tired I very carefully followed the instructions, checking each step of the way that I had done exactly as described. I turned on the water. No leaks. I turned on the tap, the cabinet under the tap became the new and exciting Slough Swimming Pool with added water features (Be amazed by our wet pile of tiles in what was once a cardboard box!); yes, it turned out that the instructions lacked a vital note.

Having done much mopping and cleaning, I discovered that in one of the bags lain unnoticed were two small washers. Not in the diagram, not in the instructions. No. It comes with 4 hoses, this tap. 3 of them have all the sealing washers built in. One, it turns out, does not. Thankfully it’s an easy to reach one. Having reassembled it, and switched the hot-and-cold around so that they were the right way round (doh!) the tap now doesn’t appear to leak. But I think that’s me for the day.

I’m now resorting to contemplating the rearrangement of the office and more pressingly the larder.