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Today’s just been one of those days; you know, one where whilst nothing goes horrendously wrong, nothing quite goes right either.

I couldn’t sleep last night, and so instead of being up early I curled up with my head on Kathryn and went back to sleep this morning.
The plumbing shop had the bits I asked for… but I asked for the wrong size (I’ll have to change them tomorrow).
The clothes shops didn’t have anything for Kathryn to wear to work (Slough has astonishingly poor clothing selections).
I didn’t see any trainers to replace my worn out and disintegrating Karimoor ones (which I rather like, presumably why they’re disintegrating).
I couldn’t remember where the garage I need to leave the deposit at is – making it hard to leave a deposit – but we did spend about 15 minutes circling the streets trying to find it.
We forgot items at the supermarket.
And I cooked too little rice for dinner, meaning that I had bread instead; not that I particularly object to bread, but I did have to sneak the plate in after Kathryn started eating so as she’d eat the rice I’d cooked without forcing us to share the measily amount I’d made.

All in all it’s been a really quite frustrating and disappointing day.

Whilst during the day we have our regular clients; people who’re lonely, people who’re not really sick but call an ambulance for the company, people who’s GP can’t be bothered to go out so sends an ambulance instead. During the night we get a different group of regulars. There seem to be several varieties, but as you may’ve guessed by now the most common of these is the pissed-and-fell-over group. Usually, pissed, fell over, ‘friends’ abandoned them on the street. At the beginning of the week they’re not too lectured-to, but at least for me, by the end of the week they get a free long lecture on drinking sensibly, and a marked lack of sympathy.

This set of nights’s been hugely varied; some days I’ve had dross, some days I’ve had some truly horrific injuries, and seriously unwell people. I’ve spent much of my time practicing my suturing, pulling bits of glass and grit from people; a little of my time applying plasters (as in plaster-of-paris plasters) which is definately something I enjoy but also something I need to work on. Though apparently the two plasters (when checked by people who can plaster) were adequate, they both needed some trimming (before I got them checked) and the second one I got the plaster vastly the wrong length; and had to wait for it to dry before chopping off a great big chunk. Not that I mind, but I think the patient was a little nervous.

It’s a funny week really, now it’s over it doesn’t seem like a week – although I feel rough as sin for only having an hours sleep in the last 26 or so. And having been on my feet all night; and I really was busy for much of the night. I worked in the Resuscitation bay and we had it full several times last night. Majors, Minors and the Observation ward I’m fairly happy with. I need to get up to speed on cannulation, but on a good day with a following wind I can pick up sick people; I do all the appropriate tests; etc, and during this block of nights the doctor was strongly suggesting a woman who I felt was unwell should go home. Having basically disregarded the doctor’s input I did a bunch of blood tests, threw some oxygen on the woman and lo, it turned out that she probably has a blood clot. Probably a PE. She was admitted when she was seen… by one of the other doctors :)

So, that made me feel pretty good about myself. I seem to be becoming more part of the team, which is nice; and settling in happily and being part of the furniture. Although people still ask me how I’m settling in. But it’s kinda nice.

And now I have a week off, well, it’s really not quite a week off because today is limited in it’s usefulness (because I feel faintly sick and incredibly tired) but I’ve got a few bits and bobs done; I’ve watched Peter’s Friends (which I’ve not seen for years and is still an excellent film), done two loads of laundry, the dishes, sanded and primed one of the two remaining bath feet, removed the incorrectly laid tiles from the bathroom and removed most (not quite all) of the tile adhesive, put out the recycling and had a bit of a nap. Perhaps it’s little wonder I feel like crap :)

As you might have noticed I’ve been a little slack with updates; this is because of nights. Well, that and actually doing things with my time when I’m not working, which makes updating somewhat less easy.

Anyhow, so here’s a bit of an update: Computers, still not working properly. I reinsalled OS X on the Hackintosh, but it’s still not happy (I can’t get it to recognise the network adaptor); the downstairs PC is still in the throws of disconnection frenzy; and the laptop is still sick. So, to appease you all, I’ve uploaded photos from the Laptop. My camera’s nearly full though; although I think I can get the photos onto the Mac, now it’s booting anyhow.

First up, from way back (excuse the lazyness) – here’s the Pari and Clare’s Wedding photoset. I have a vague feeling I posted about it at the time; either that or Kathryn did and I linked to her post :)

Right, what else? A while back we went to the VVOC and I got to meet the oldest Minor…

It actually made me rather fancy a lowlight mog, but first I need to get Rebecca sorted. We’ve got the majority of the payout from the insurance company and there *should* be enough there to do the engine (they didn’t pay for the engine, but I’ve decided not to replace some of the tools that we claimed for, because plan is move -> canada, and I’m unlikely to need them before then). I’ve also found a local motor engineer who looks like a proper old fashioned engineer, and seems cheaper than the big companies. He’s doing the unleaded conversion for Brick when he gets back from his holiday (well, the actual work on the head; I’m not sure if they do actual engine work, I may find out or may get my pet garage to do it) but either way we’ll be testing the quality of his work :)

Anyhow, the main purpose of the post was to update after meeting Lauril; one of Kathryn’s friends who stopped over on her way to Spain. We mostly had a relaxed Friday evening when she arrived – curry was eaten, films and TV watched and we all chatted… Saturday morning was a trifle slow, and Saturday afternoon was the world’s quickest tour of London. We did a slightly off-norm collection of tourist hotspots and at the same time doing totally non-tourist places. We also did them at speed, and as the light of the day faded…

We headed into London with the intention of getting lunch – quick discussion and we’d decided to head to Camden Market and get lunch somewhere around there – being as it’s not peak tourist season even on a Saturday that shouldn’t have been too cramped. Unfortunately we’d not bargained on the words that strike fear into the heart of any public-transport user. “Replacement Bus Service”. As we’d not really sprinted through our morning we were quite hungry – and in the end headed up towards Soho rather than endure the bus on a Saturday in London. This, it turned out was an excellent idea. We located a well reviewed little Sushi restaurant with a conveyory thing. After several minutes of embaressed European and American ‘uh-how-does-this-work-exactly’ness we managed to order food and then had some really very nice Sushi…

Having been well fed, and decided to leave Kink, Cake and Coffee for later we headed out in search of the Travel Bookstore (Stanford’s), making it there despite the alien invasion…

Stanfords is, I think, the oldest Travel bookstore in London, and is ace, quite frankly. Filled with maps, books and uh, more maps and books, oh and a very very large globe. While Lauril hunted for maps (and found rather a lot of them), Kathryn and I wandered about going ‘ooh, books’. Taking myself and Kathryn to a book shop is a dangerous experience limited only by the amount of money we don’t have. And even that isn’t always a strong restriction on the amount of books that we come away with.

Lauril managed to escape with less maps than she picked up initially, and rather more books than she initially picked up… Kathryn and I split the cost of a book – which I think is called Tuk Tuk to the Road. Having exhausted ourselves with books and maps we headed to CC&K, for our required dose of Coffee, Cake (oh, such good cake) and Kink. Sadly I can’t find the image I fell in love with the first or second time I went, now I actually have an excuse to buy the damn photo. Gah. The Coffee, the Cake and indeed the Kink were of their usual high standards and I’m very glad they stayed open. Somehow it makes me feel more like I belong in the city to know a awesome little coffee shop to go to.

We then headed down to Trafalgar Square to see Nelson on the Lions, there was the Journey (People Trafficking) display / protest in the square but the queue was waaay long, and knowing we only had this one day to show Lauril all of London, it didn’t seem like an great use of our day. If I weren’t on nights this week I’d’ve liked to head back see it before it disappeared off, but I’m on nights this week, which is somewhat unfortunate.

We got to be very touristy, which is quite fun; having lived near London for much of my life somehow I’ve never really done the Tourist thing. I’ve visited the museums, which is I guess, touristy? And I’ve been through most of the touristy places, but not really done them as tourist locations. Anyhow, we clambered up on the lions (you have to!), and took pictures…

We then made a headlong sprint down to see Buckingham Palace, which left Lauril rather disappointed. I think she said “That’s it?”. On the way there we passed the rather dubiously named Minstry of Justice; I paused a few seconds to take a photo of the sign – apparently the Security Guard was unimpressed, but we made our escape before he could say “No photographing public places”. It continues to make me worry where this country is headed; but hey. I don’t plan to be here that long.

We spent some time snapping shots of Buckpal, despite Lauril’s lack of impressedness; the fading light was quite fun to play with. I spent some time playing with the monochrome setting on my camera :)

Long exposures and water are also fun to play with…

We walked back through St. James Park; pausing to spend several minutes attempting to photograph big ben; the lightness of the sky and the darkness of the park some how prevented me from getting anything but blur. Even with propping my camera against things.

Having trundled through the park we found the London Eye glowing away…. very pretty it was too.

And then, on the way to find food we wandered through Trafalgar Square again and the protest was doing giant puppetry things which were incredible to watch. Had we not been hungry, I certainly could have stayed and watched for a long time.

So, then we sorted out Lauril’s need to try Ale; Kathryn and I partook in fine Cider (incidentally, aren’t pubs much nicer now they’re smoke free?), which was impressively effective mostly due to a lack of food – so we made good our escape and headed to EMM – where we had some shockingly reasonably priced food (there was such a lot of it).

And then we headed home…

’twas a good day…

I’ll write about nights some other time.

Since everybody else is doing it :)

1. Sprinkler System Installer
2. Chiropractor
3. Massage Therapist
4. Dental Hygienist
5. Physical Therapist
6. Kinesiologist
7. Optical / Ophthalmic Lab Technician
8. Audiologist
9. Welder
10. Tilesetter
11. Boilermaker
12. Automotive Painter
13. Dentist
14. Orthodontist
15. Autobody Repairer
16. Nurse Practitioner
17. Tailor / Dressmaker
18. Pet Groomer
19. Security Systems Technician
20. Acupuncturist
21. Nurse
22. Cabinetmaker
23. Plumber
24. Sign Maker
25. Electrician
26. Dental Lab Tech
27. Electronics Assembler
28. Race Car Mechanic
29. Appliance Repairer
30. Motorcycle Mechanic
31. Automobile Mechanic
32. Aircraft Mechanic
33. Diesel Mechanic
34. Heating, Air Conditioning, Refrigeration Tech
35. Respiratory Therapist
36. Elevator Installer and Repairer
37. Hairstylist
38. Small Engine Mechanic
39. Esthetician
40. Millwright

This past week’s been a really interesting and incredible one. Kathryn finished her course and moved down to Slough last Tuesday; and y’know what I’m very happy. James commented that we smile a lot (“You both grin like mad things”) – and y’know what, it’s true. Somehow I just feel happier.

Sorry, I realise that we’re also sickly sweet, but hey, we’ve only been actually able to see each other for more than a couple of days at a time for one week, tomorrow. So, yes. So that was Tuesday; I’d just come off nights and have to admit that the whole thing was kinda blurry for me.

The rest of the week’s been made up of working on the house (the bathroom ceiling’s flakey paint has now been largely resolved; Kathryn revealed a continent of plaster, and I increased it’s size tonight before slathering the whole area in dilute PVA before applying lots of filler. Much sanding now awaits), helping out at my mum’s house (and here’s another example of where being with Kathryn is just better’n being by myself. Not only do I get her awesome company, but she reminds me to take advantage of being out in the countryside).
Having wandered around we picked blackberries to go with my mum’s home grown apples – which on getting home we made into a really rather nice apple and blackberry cake. It didn’t quite rise right, but next time we’ll use the oven not-in-fan-mode.

Then we headed up for Pari’s 2nd wedding – which was just beautiful. It was really great to catch up with some people I’ve not seen since university; I was actually incredibly nervous – having not seen them for 7 years; but in the end it worked out well. Kathryn’s posted about the wedding here – and when I get the photos off my camera, if any of them are any good I’ll flickr’em, but that means getting my Mac working. Which I could’ve done tonight, but didn’t. Instead I watched the IT crowd :)

Finally we headed back via the Gaydon Heritage Motor Museum, which was hosting the VVOC’s AGM – and I got to meet (briefly) some members of the VVOC, drip a lot of oil on the car park, collect a new head (which will be made unleaded) for Brick, and also got to spend some time looking at the world’s earliest production Morris Minor. Kathryn too pics of me next to the Minor, so expect them too; I also took a fair few pictures as I wandered round.

We also sat in a Think, Ford’s acquired-then-sold EV – it was interesting, but also disconcertingly dull. I guess that’s what we need, dull EVs for people to just buy and use. It appeared to be built to Ford’s usual standards and it was interesting to see moulded plastic door panels with the kinds of door gaps I’m used to on the Minor. (I have to say, looking at the photos of the newer ones, it looks like they’ve improved somewhat on the very early one we were sat in)
Anyway, Brick brought us home despite atrocious traffic on the M40 – and the temperature gauge hanging around just before the “I’m letting all the water out now” marker. There were quite a few modern cars with the traditional pool of green water underneath them sat on the hard shoulder, so I am quite impressed with Brick’s performance, especially given the stuff that’s passing for coolant in ‘im at the moment.
1000 miles in a week not bad for a 35 year old car :)

So I’ve got Brick back, and the Mac is now at least booting; although I need to reinstall again once I’ve moved some files about (to save them from a more thorough nukeing). But now the Laserjet’s died. “50 SERVICE” is all it says now; which appears to be most likely to be a fuser problem. I know the LJ 4 is hardly the newest piece of kit, and probably barely worth fixing, but I rather like it and it’s vastly cheaper to run than my DeskJet. It looks like it’s about 30 quid for a replacement fuser unit, which is a bit annoying. I guess I’ll take it apart and check first – but the fact it decided to die having sat and been working, rather than failing in first use is quite annoying. Anyone got a spare fuser unit for an LJ 4?

And this is taken from  Kathryn’s LJ:

1) One Book that made you read it More Than Once: “Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman!” – I read this loads of times as a kid and now have a copy all of my own.

2) One book you would want on a desert island: The SAS Survival Handbook. Is that a bit practical?

3) One book that made you laugh: I could leave this with Kathryn’s answer(‘The Eyre Affair’ by Jasper Fforde), but I’ll put down Gridlock – the beginning of which made me laugh a huge amount.

4) One book that made you cry: I *think* Tipping the Velvet (Sarah Walters) did; there have been several but I can’t think of them right now.

5) One book that made you wish you had written: I don’t know the answer to this one. No book’s ever made me wish I’d written it, I guess…

6) One book that made you you wish had never been written: While there are many hideous and unpleasant books in the world, none that I have read would I wish non-existence upon.

7) One book you are currently reading: Theoretically Kushiel’s Avatar is next, but there’s also the Toyminator and Megatokyo 5 hanging about; and Scott Pilgrim (book 4) should be arriving soon.

8) One book you have been meaning to read: The Well of Loneliness (Radclyffe Hall).

9) One book that changed your life: The closest to this is a book on the theory of how people deal with bad news and bereavement (Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler Ross) which I read because of my course but it coincided with my dad’s illness and death.

So, one week of nights over. I have a good nights group – although sadly two of ’em are leaving.

Unfortunately, also, I have my usual post-nights malaise. I have a sore throat and feel generally like I have a head-cold approaching. At any rate, here’s a link courtesy of James. I’m going over here to install OS X.

There’s been loads written about nights in the emergency department in the UK, and quite frankly it’s pretty much all true.

We get an astonishing amount of dross through the doors, many of whom claim that people have ‘spiked their drinks’ – before explaining that they’ve had 6 pints, ‘a few’ shots, and maybe a few of those drinks consisting of fruit flavour to mask the cheap ethanol. But they can ‘handle their drink’ so their drink ‘must have been spiked’.

Why they imagine that after consuming 20 odd units of alcohol they’ll be feeling absolutely peachy is beyond me. By the time I was 18 I’d sussed that drinking half a bottle of voddy was enough to make me really quite ill and didn’t do it *that* often; and even despite drinking enough alcohol to float a small navy on some occasions during my youth, my friends were sensible enough to know the difference between ‘pissed out of one’s skull’ and ‘in need of the ED’.

Oddly though, I’ve had a dramatically non-standard set of night shifts. Monday was dull, to the point of me wishing I could reasonably sleep on one of the (many) empty beds and be woken when a patient came in. Tuesday and Wednesday were unutterably horrendous. Thursday was oddly okay, and Friday – well last night, was interesting.

At one point (a several hour long point) the number of police in the department actually outnumbered the number of nursing staff. Possibly even the total number of doctors and nurses. In bay one we had ‘drunk so much he was unconcious’ (he’s a regular though, sadly. We had a sweepstake going on his alcohol level (looser to make the tea) – I won :) ), in 2 we had ‘drug addict under arrest’ and in 3 we had ‘drunk and violent and under arrest’. My charming bunch were worked through and discharged, although I fully expect to see number 1 again tonight. I’ve seen him certainly 4 of the 5 nights I’ve worked this week.

Incidentally, 3 gave me one of the easiest requests to refuse I’ve ever had. He wanted a blowjob. At least it gave me and the police something to chat about – well, quite honestly we seemed to get on quite well. Depressingly though I’m starting to pick up the slang ‘clucking’, the charming gent in 2 was.

In amongst the dross though are the sad cases. The people who really should be there, and who don’t get as much time as they should because inconsiderate people drink more than they should and fall over (and in one case be so inebriated as to not be able to recognise his own son). A lovely older chap who’d fallen out of bed and sustained a nasty head injury, and I think the saddest of the week, a woman who having recovered from cancer came in with a bleed – and rapidly went downhill.

We fought and fought, but I’m told she passed away not too long after leaving the department. I love my job, and am pleased to say I knew when to step aside and let someone with more knowledge step in, but even still it was a surprise to see someone deteriorate so quickly – and she was so friendly – that was a hard one.

Especially, I think, as on the 28th of August 2 years ago my dad passed away from cancer. And whilst my sensitivity to this is not that huge; my mum reminds me of it, and perhaps it affects me subconsciously more than I realise. And maybe moreso this year following Aisling’s news about her mother. So. Yes. Anyhow, that got onto that rather more than I meant to.

Anyhow, I need to head to bed (once I’ve rung the garage to pay for the car repairs) and sleep for tonight is another night. Wish me luck :)