Category: General

So, I need passport photos for the interview next week, in search of which I headed in to town. Well, technically I headed in to the bank and they said “oh, the nearest is the sainsburys”. So I went to the Sainsburys who informed me their photo machine was gone; and the nearest was a Chemist which I couldn’t be bothered to drive around looking for so I went into town (where, incidentally I now know of 4, maybe even 5 photo machines in a tiny tiny radius).

Anyhow, having got my photos I thought, hell, I’m in town, I should pick up the secateurs (sp.) and a green-wood-saw so I can trim the Bay tree. Oh, and a new cafetier. Apparently single cup cafetiers are somewhat less in fashion than when I bought it because having toured a large variety of shops I was unable to locate one. Thankfully woolworths’ still had the same model I bought before – albeit a penny more expensive this time – and this one, oddly, doesn’t say “PYREX” in the little hole where it should. Still.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find it until I’d stumbled unwittingly into Wilkinson’s. Wilkinsons, cheap as they are also have the advantage of being needlessly vague about where things are made (instead putting “Distributed by Wilkinsons, UK”, or similar on their packaging). This allows me to assume that they’re not items made by people living on slave-like wages in a dictatorship (unlike labels which proclaim certain countries I could name). Of course their *price* probably indicates otherwise, but my rare purchases from them ameliorate my feelings of guilt, at least slightly.

Anyhow, I wandered in in search of the Cafetier and the gardening implements and was lucky to escape with just a toilet brush, toothbrush holder, shower organisy doojit and a toilet roll holder. I was awfully close to getting the cheap-but-adequate bathroom cabinet but was stopped by a sudden fit of sanity. Oh, and the garden bench which is almost certainly atrocious quality but looks pretty nifty.

Anyhow, I’m off to do some garden tidying; and if the light holds I might do some very local abandonment.

I am, incidentally, feeling brighter. A bit of in-my-head poetry writing and some getting out in the sunshine truly did help.

2008 has, for several of my friends sucked an astonishing amount. And it’s been surprisingly challenging of late for me. My oldest friend lost his dad 2 years ago (I think) to the same cancer that claimed my dad. This year he lost his mum too; something which has been stuck in my head since. In the quiet moments I think about it; it makes it harder to concentrate on the good in my life.

I’ve also had some hard stuff at work; including a post-cardiac-arrest where I felt more useless than a chocolate teapot. I’ve done my ILS – which in theory is meant to mean I can ‘lead’ a cardiac arrest – if no one else is there. But with the doctor in charge doing less than nothing myself and the other nurse there flailed – expecting leadership and finding none. Thankfully an anesthetist took over, lead the care and once we were up and running it went much better. Well, sort-of. The whole thing was just…well, it left me feeling that I need to know more. My problem is that between the house and work I’m pretty much exhausted. I don’t feel like learning at home because I’m too tired.

I know that’s a feeble excuse. But I mean it; it’s a hard old slog. A few days ago I was officially the only nurse doing ‘treatments’ – that means that everyone who needed a treatment in the clinic or who needed sutures or dressings had to have them done by me. About half way through the day when the treatments box was full staff from other areas were freed up to help. In the end it wasn’t that stressful because I just declared a ‘fuck-it’ and carried on at my own pace. I didn’t even think about the 4 hour target except to order the order of treatments. No breaches, though, which would have made the morning way more stressful (mostly because we had lots of clinic patients and not too many sutures until people were able to help).

I am also still a little on the stressed side about money. I know that Rebecca’s going to be ‘ready’ soon; and that’s going to be, well, expensive. I need to send my letter to Charles Ware’s Morris Minor Centre, but I don’t see them sending me a refund of any sort. I see a fight involving the small claims court.

I’m quite fed up about it though.

In other news, I’ve finally finished the tiling in the bathroom. I’d been putting it off because I had a suspicion that it’d be a pig of a job and… it was, somewhat. The boxing is just slightly too big and I’d made it impossible to make all the joints line up because I’m some kind of mad person who likes to cause herself pain. And today, all things being equal there’ll be some grouting and some kitchen stuff done.

And lo, the house moves on.

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, 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 :)

So, Saturday was our anniversary, and we headed to London for the day to celebrate… First up we headed to Russell Square tube station, because that’s where we first met in person. Russell square, thankfully isn’t a dingy grotty tube station; it’s one of the prettier tiled ones, where the edwardian tiles have survived well and the whole place isn’t too shabby. This is fortunate, because otherwise I’d’ve had to come up with somewhere else to ask my beloved to marry me.

It’s now where we first met, and where she said ‘yes’. I haven’t really got into my head that she said yes; it still makes me smile at every thought. I look down and see the ring on my finger or feel it when I’m doing something and I grin like some kind of idiot.

So we spent the rest of our day pottering about. We headed to the nearby little italian place immediately after for lunch (paninis), and then to Gay’s The Word (where I was tempted by Claire McNab’s Kylie Kendal series being available, all of it, second hand) and thense over to Islington where we meandered round the Antique Market (I only bought one book, sadly I realised it’s the second half of a two volume set, but ’tis still cute (the Family Physician)). Drank Starbucks Coffee, grinned some more, held hands lots, and then headed off for dinner (French, at a very nice French Restaurant, with Champagne and everything), and then off to Sadler’s Wells Theatre, and then off to Ottolenghi (or some similarly spelt place who do awesomely nice deserts), and then off Dancing in an allegedly Lesbian Club.

It was an awesome day. And y’know why, because I love her and she said yes.

So, I guess I’ve been somewhat slack in my updates of late; work’s been incredibly hard – after a week of the nicest shifts I could imagine, a week of nights where I came home tired only because I was on nights, and not because I’d been working so hard I felt like collapsing I’ve gone back to days where we have so many patients through the department that ‘coping’ is an innacrurate term. Virtually every day sees calls to management to say ‘we have amulances queuing in the doorway’, and the waiting room looks like the front rows at a gig, people crammed in with no where to go.

The phrase ‘sorry for the wait’ now trips off my tongue in the same way as “Hi, I’m Kate, I’m the nurse looking after you’. And last night was so busy I came home and spent the entire night dreaming about Resus; I kept waking up from a pseudo anxiety dream in which I was required to shock the patient in Cardiac arrest (which I’m trained and assessed to do, but have never done); in between that one were the multiple sequences of just being so insanely busy in resus that I kept transferring patients out and coming back to a full bay. It wasn’t a good night’s sleep.

To top it off, finances mean that I’m now in the midst of applying to work for an agency so that I can work on my days off. On the plus side we should have a new boiler soon (the 16th), not that we can afford it, but running the electric house/water heating cost us 400 quid over Xmas, so we need to stop that.

Anyhow, work calls (summons me from afar), hopefully I’ll get around to updating a bit more, I’ve got some things I’d like to post about.

On the good (awesome) side, tomorrow Kathryn and I will have been together for a year; so we’re off to London for the day :)