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So, I’ve had an interesting couple of days. Last night, because our ward, indeed a large chunk of Saint Bob’s Hospital  is closed due to an outbreak of diarrhoea, our ward was strangely, well, quiet. Empty beds and because we’re good and also lucky, our ward appeared to have escaped very lightly – we had very few cases of diarrhoea; so we had what has got to be the very first properly staffed – or at least appropriate staff-patient ratio’d shift I’ve ever had.

It was pleasant. I came home and I didn’t hurt, I wasn’t exhausted, I was sleepy and tired, but not exhausted. I got up this morning to go to work, and y’know what, I didn’t struggle to get up, I didn’t hurt as I got in the shower, and I drove to work in a cheery mood.

Sadly, all things come to an end and our ward is now filling up. But hey, 2 days of joy – I know it’s wrong of me to have enjoyed the time while other wards struggled – but to be able to give *really good care* to patients; to check them properly, to wash them slowly and take time over it. To wash between people’s toes, to remove everyone’s anti-embolism stockings and wash their feet.

To shave all the male patients who wanted it… To actually know what’s going on with patients, and be able to answer questions and hand over accurately to the late staff… Oh, and to just spend some time talking to the patients. To do my job properly, the way I’d like to, just for 2 days.

Anyhow, enough dwelling, some things were less fun today. I realised, like I said that I ordered the wrong size tyre. So I rang up Berkshire Motorcycle Centre and said ‘Hi, look, I ordered a tyre on Saturday…’ [they cut me off] ‘Yes, it’s not arrived yet, it should be in tomorrow’.

To which I said ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been astonishingly silly, and ordered the wrong tyre’ or polite words to that effect. Their response was “well, it’s yours now. You have to pay for it”.

Uh, no, actually I don’t. Not legally, no. Not in any sense of the word. It’s not even arrived. In the end I argued my side and the guy was incredibly rude and then told me that he wasn’t interested in my custom and hung up. So, I recommend not going to Berkshire M/C Centre in Slough.

At any rate, I’ve ordered my tyre from an online tyre place, and I’ll get someone local to fit it – my local tyre place probably.

And in better news; my builder came! He came and built stuff. Well, technically, he demolished stuff, and then built stuff. And discovered that my house has had some half-assed-botch jobs done on it – it currently has two joists which while they are fixed (one presumes) at one end, are floating – held in place by the floorboards – he’s planning to put joist hangers in (which should have been done a when the chimney breast was originally modified).

That and the original chimney is supported on two ‘tie in’ bricks. Uh, only one of them seems to only have maybe 1/5th it’s length in the wall it’s tied in to. It’s currently propped up with a bit of wood, a bit of brick, and a screw driver. The wall also appears to have been built from random brick; the new one’s not exactly any prize – being a mixture of block work and brick – and it’s imperial brick and metric blockwork – and they don’t tie together terribly neatly, but he is trying to keep materials costs down for me – and it’ll all be behind plaster.

There would be pictures, but the CF card reader is on my desk by the Mac. And the mac is sat above the floaty joisted floorboards.

Whilst they’re no more unsafe than they were yesterday, I don’t *particularly* want to tread on them. So you’ll have to be waiting for them.

So, last year I went through a fair struggle but this whole house / money / job game has got me stressed. Perhaps that’s why I’m dreaming – and remembering snippets – because there’s something to worry about so I’m dreaming. I feel like my body is falling apart – despite me living better (although no real exercise, I need to do something about that); and eating better, I’m sick – and I’ve been sick with this sore throat for nearly a week now. In fact, it’ll be a week tomorrow. And there’s no sign of improvement, I just feel as bad as I did the first day I got it.

I get frustrated at my body at times like this – wanting it to be better, cursing my immune system for not kicking out the invader. Which is revoltingly unfair of me, but after experiencing a year of not getting unwell; well; this repetitive sickness is getting to me.

Ironically, so far this year my hayfever’s remained mild – mild enough that I debate not taking the tablets – I may have mentioned I went for 4 days without; but the occasional sneezing fits on top of the headache and sore throat, that was a bit much.

I’ve tried to be as gentle with myself as I could whilst still preparing for the builder; I split up the work over several days; and I’m glad I have. I do still need to do the washing up and move the washing machine, but that’s it now. I’ve taken the recycling to be recycled, I’ve dried laundry on the line (a bit at a time, ‘cos it’s a bit stretchier than perhaps you’d expect, mind it is a *long* run) with no supports, I’ve cleared the kitchen door, and uh, I’ve watched 3 episodes of Hustle (how come they’re getting Hustle in the US before we get it here; it’s *our* programme. Since when did the BBC start showing shows in the US before here?!, huh?). I also watched Dr Strangelove, which I still think is a fantastic film.

I gargled with salt water (so much I actually made myself sick :( ), and with TCP (which tastes revolting, incidentally). And I drunk so much to try and soothe my throat that I started to feel unwell.

I don’t really know what to do; I want rid of this but I’ve got work tomorrow and it’s going to get worse.

Oh, and I ordered the wrong size tyre for my bike, so I get to make a very embarrassed phone call tomorrow…. Bah.

I tried, I really tried – and frankly the period of time when my body was informing me that I was freezing cold, followed by the later period where my body was telling me that I was insanely hot; yeah, they made me think I shouldn’t really do heavy lifting and working.

So I’ve mostly sat around, slept, kinda stared faintly at stuff on the laptop; listened to more WW..Dtm. I’ve also done some useful things – e-mailed a bloke about a potential interior for the Viva (I did say I’d tidy him up); and paid for the electronic ignition – it doesn’t look like my mileage is likely to drop in the near future; and the Viva needed new points 3,000 miles ago. So, yeah, let’s get that in and in, hopefully I’ll get slightly better starting with it :-)

I also paid off one card, the other one though is starting to scare me as it’s getting out of hand. I need to get some bank work sorted, quite urgently. All I can do this month is pay off the minimum. Last month I paid off a lot less than I put on it. I’ve kind of accepted that there’s jobs which I’m going to have to do, but it’s somewhat scary at the moment.

On the plus side, my friend Dave reckons the ‘zed can be MOT’d sans wingmirrors; I can’t *see* anything about wing mirrors in the MOT testing manual. So anyway, that would be good. Tyre, MOT and Tax (since I’ve accidentally renewed my insurance) and I should be able to rat about on my zed. And Dave reckons he has a suggestion for making my ‘zed run better – apparently the standard ignition unit fails to give enough advance for the 251 – it can be tweaked though with a dremel…which apparently gives vastly better performance and economy…

My one exception to my resting was while I was cooking dinner and the, uh, box of kitchen stuff magic’d itself into the lounge. Yes. And that dishwasher, I never touched it m’lord, it just shuffled itself across to that other wall. As did the bookcase. I was astonished. *looks sheepishly at Kathryn*