Mostly lemon based

Blog

  • Weekendly Updatitude.

    So, I actually had a weekend off, which is quite weird, and I’ve spent it doing things which are fun/dubious/entertaining. First up, after a day at work which was less fun than it could’ve been, and actually invoked my ‘pissed off’ state – which I posted about here, James headed round and we went off to see his play.

    Yep, his play. James has written loads over the years I’ve known him, and I’ve had the pleasure of reading some of it; I’m a big fan of his writing… But this is the first time I’ve seen a play of his. A short play, one act, but a good one. Yeah, I’m not good at reviewing things, so I shan’t try. Suffice to say I was impressed. It was part of the Windsor Arts Centre short-play competition, which is apparently bi-annual and run with the writer’s group. It was really a thoroughly enjoyable evening – reminding me how much I used to love going to the theatre, and just the act of going *out* – although it did take me about an hour to decide what level of neat I was going for and to find a combination of clothing that I declared suitable. Which was funny, ‘cos I wore the jumper the whole time…
    Unfortunately, by the time the after-party occurred I had reached a stage of phenomenally tired. So, while James socialised I sat on a chair in the corner and endeavoured not to fall asleep. ‘m glad I didn’t drink any alcohol though; there was a distinct alcohol drinking urge, it being a pleasant evening out and the faint urge to have a glass of wine was there, but I resisted, knowing I was going to be asleep if I did. The one pissy bit was some incredibly irritating people behind us laughing, talking and generally being annoying through, well, the whole show – but particularly through James’ play. Mainly, I suspect, because the actor who they’d come to ‘support’ wasn’t in it.

    How do you deal with that? I just wanted to turn round and tell them to shut up, but I didn’t want to make it worse, and nor did I want to make a scene in the middle of James’ play.

    Anyway. So we headed back to mine, the icy temperatures waking me up somewhat, so a long evening of chatting was had and having done battle with the camp-bed, and warmed up the bedroom (cheapskate that I am, James got to sleep on the camp bed at the foot of my bed so I only had to heat one room) I slept like a baby (that phrase is odd, because babies, in general, seem to wake up a lot during the night).

    Saturday came around and having, uh, talked really our way through the morning we decided to do a little bit of urbexing. All of 30 seconds of research and we had a site within walking distance. I need to process some photos, they’re not very good – although there’s a few arty ones; James with his nice zoom managed to get some rather better shots which actually look like we were inside the building (but we weren’t – although there is a way in, it’s not a safe way in, and I value my registration too much. It was very frustrating though, because we could see the inside through the grilles on the windows, but couldn’t really get decent shots of it). At any rate, they need some processing (mine) before they’re let out in the open, so you’ll have to wait for ’em. As a side point, it appears James (and therefore some others of you) may not have seen the Bristol North Pool shots – so here’s the links again: Gallery 1, Gallery 2.

    Anyway, having frozen our peripheries off, we headed back stopping briefly for me to collect a bin – free of charge, of course – which is now my Kitchen bin. Ra.

    We then had Pizza, a quick run to Tesco provided us with both Baileys *and* ice cubes, which combined to make a very chilled out evening. We watched Children of Men, which is a *really bloody good film*, and should have done much better. And actually, people should be made to watch our dystopian future. I also found my copy of Threads, should I ever want to depress myself thoroughly again.

    Another late evening of chatting and gently consuming alcohol was then followed by a rather pleasant night’s sleep which – despite us both waking up early was another day largely spent talking, playing with the eyeToy games, and me hunting for Rez – ‘cos James’s never seen it in action (though I wasn’t planning on showing the accessory to him ;-) ). Sadly I cant’ find it, whilst I’m certain it is in the house, more than that, that I’ve *seen* it, I can’t work out where it landed up. I thought I’d brought it down to be with the other playstation games. But apparently not. I do now, though, need to find it :-)

    At any rate, we chilled out and I fleshed out an idea for a Maker article I’m thinking of writing (yes, really); it’s actually something that *could* be a product – but frankly, it seems like too much effort. But making a one off one, that could be good. Can you copyright a design – but allow people to make it in a not-for-profit way? Only whilst I’m really happy for everyone to make their own, I’d be pissed if some company picked up on it and started making it. Anyone know?

    Anyway, we made curry, sat down and watched Ultraviolet – which I still reckon is an okay film. Not brilliant, but pretty and moderately entertaining – although obviously that is assisted by the presence on screen of our Milla.

    And finally, after James headed home, I did something almost unprecedented. I rang my sister, and just had a chat. I don’t know why, I just felt the urge, and did so. So that’s been my weekend, how’s yours been?

    I’ve promised myself I’ll finish off some work before I get down to editing those images, but I decided to let myself actually enjoy the weekend off.

  • Two Quick Questions

    Does anyone remember what the digital 35mm film replacement devices were called, and has anyone seen any cheap? I have an urge to play with one in my AE-1.

    Does anyone know how in-car-entertainment amplifiers are hooked up? They *appear* to rely on the volume control being performed by the ‘head unit’. Which is okay, I guess, but slightly frustrating because I was hoping not to rely on 1970s audio amplification…

  • A day of parts

    So, Brick started today. Actually, Brick started in an enthusiastic and positive manner, which is good. I don’t know whether this is a resolution to the battery issue, but one can hope.

    At any rate, I got to work, and promptly filled out an incident form. I hate doing incident forms, but lately they’ve been occupying more of my time. And I had one of those days, which while I feel quite positive about the day – and the stuff I did with the Student Nurse today, and despite struggling and the frustrations of an Agency member of staff who not only doesn’t pull her weight, but actively shirks work. Despite all that I think I’m lucky to have my job.

    However, I am forced to wonder, were it not for my plans to depart this land and go to Canada taking my limited expertise with me, how long I’d carry on. I got home today and – because we were so short of time – I had to fill in a statement for another incident which happened a while back, which had a serious outcome for the individual involved. I’d say that we need more nurses, not less, on the ward. But hey.

    And during my ‘break’ I did more paperwork – another incident form, this time for the thing that made me question how long I’d tolerate risking myself for such low pay. Today a sick patient coughed vomit into my eye. Because I was wearing my contacts, and because I didn’t take my spare glasses with me, I couldn’t irrigate my eye, I could only gently rinse it, hoping not to damage or wash out my contact lens. It’s odd though, because at the time I was too busy concentrating on him not choking to worry about myself. I stood there and suctioned and when he was safe I actioned the thought that had been in the back of my head (‘I really need to wash my eye’).
    The risk of an infection is small, so long as he’s not got, say, Herpes simplex, or somesuch. But as experiences go it wasn’t much fun. And I shall worry, slightly, for a few days – until I get the results of the swab sent off.

    As I defer my student loan for another month, and look at my struggle to meet outgoings with my income, I think to myself that this is not a great situation to be in. Not really. I need to be paid more, or have less stress.

    Sadly, I love my job, and neither of those things is likely to occur, so I guess I’ll take my little old self somewhere else, where the money’s the same, but the cost of living is lower…

    In other, but related, news – did anyone else know about this? I certainly didn’t, and feel for the EMTs. They’re great guys and this isn’t going to do anything for their morale.

  • Lords alive I’m more tired than an insomniac enjoying an arctic summer

    Well, that might be an overstatement. But after a full shift at work (and the ever so enjoyable late/early shift rotation), I had to go retrieve my car from my mums; a process which would have gone much smoother had I have disregarded careful common sense and just put the ignition system back in the shonky condition it was in when I got the car. On the plus side, I suspect that the new coil has sorted the hot-starting. I hope.

    Or more accurately, we struggled through a VAST traffic jam (that was fun) and made it home. All pray that he starts tomorrow…

  • A beautiful plan, spoiled only by its complete failure to work

    So I had this plan for today. It being my day off, and my car having yet again hosed a battery yesterday. I carefully constructed a plan; a plan which would cope with me not being terribly enthusiastic about getting up on my day off. A plan which didn’t require me to do so much as to exhaust me.

    A simple plan.

    I would ‘go to Halfords’ (thus allowing me to not need to get up at get going before 9), and buy some oil, some moly-grease (‘cos minor’s need nothing so complex. Pfer. Modern cars ;-) ) and some spark plugs. I would heap my tools in the back of Brick and head to my mom’s, where I’d promised I would check in for her. I would service my car, clean up the connectors for the starter side of the circuit, tighten the fan belt ‘er so slightly, have a quick poke at the floor, and head home.

    The first part went well, I even remembered to check that the letter my mum wanted me to check’d arrived, had arrived (it hadn’t, so I rung and sorted that out). I set to on the car, popping it up on ramps and working my way, rather slowly through the service (‘s been a while, and I’ve never worked on a Viva). Prodded the floor, sadly there’s a bit more rust and filler than I’d noticed before. Still not scary amounts, but mildly saddening.

    I cleaned connectors, (I blew a fuse on my mum’s fan heater, doh) and then I went to start the car. And it wouldn’t start. After about an hour of fiddling I shuffled (with much pushing) my car onto the drive, and my mum’s into the garage and rang the AA. Apparently, it’s 95 quid, because I’ve exceeded my call out limit, and I only get local recovery. Uh. So. That’d not help really. So then we went for more fiddling. At 1845, I gave up, shunted my mum’s car back out onto the road, pushed the Viva back onto the drive and drove my mum’s car home. Now I have to sort out why the bloody thing won’t start, get the bits and then get back home on Thursday afternoon to coax the thing into starting so as I can drive it home for work on Friday.

    Sometimes I hate being mechanically adept, because if I weren’t I’d’ve just handed the car to a garage and been done with it. But no.

  • House-al Progress Update

    So, I was going to take my camera out today and play, but I was overcome with ‘you should be doing the house’ type feelings. This lead to me… doing the house. I’ve got other stuff that needs doing too, which I shall do once I’ve had a bit of a rest. Anyhow, house progress photos are here.
    It looks like the plaster in the back bedroom is not quite as shonky as that on the stairs, but it’s pretty rough in places. Since I just want to paint it, that’s a bit of a bugger. I suspect I’m going to get to spend a fair few hours in there doing my best impersonation of the filler bunny. Lots of PVA and filler will be spread and then much sanding. I also want to convert the only single socket to a double. That’s about it for the second bedroom, I think. I might put a phone point in there too, since it’s meant to be doubling as an office.

    I think I’ve also worked out the furniture layout in there. So, that’s good. I think :-)

    I’m starting to think about doing much of the rest of the work too. And organising and planning that. Some of it’ll be a bit of a struggle – especially doing stuff like relaying the floor in here (to-be-bathroom), but I want to shave as much off in the way of costs as I can. Anyway, so that’s the news :)

  • A little update

    So, I thought it was about time for an update. I appear to have last updated about a week ago, which is quite a long time in my world; so yeah. The week at work has been marginally less hellish, whilst staffing’s only been marginally better, the patients have been a bit less dependent, so it’s been more copeable.

    It has, however, been a rough few days. An incident occurred at work involving a male doctor who, it appears, thought he could convert me (well, goddess knows what he was thinking, since he’s not got any excuses for his behaviour. He is, however, extremely apologetic). Until I got that resolved, and I have to say I’m impressed with my Matron, Sister and HR department – it was handled incredibly well and exactly the way I wanted, I couldn’t concentrate on work. I’m still a bit wary of going onto the wards where he’s likely to be, but my Matron actually came down with me when I bizarrely needed to (it would be that for the first time in my time working at the hospital, I need to go to this ward a day after the resolution to my complaint).

    At any rate, it’s sorted and I’m happy with that. Still in shock it happened at all, but…

    Anyway, that turned into frustration a few days later; see there’s a patient with a big wound, a wound that needs VAC therapy – or at least, is likely to benefit from it. I’ve been using VAC since before I was trained – as an HCA I used to help out with VAC wounds at the first hospital I worked at. So almost 5 years of experience with it.

    Our tissue viability nurse was angsting slightly about the fact she had the VAC to do on our ward and another dressing on another ward – and not really enough time. But I popped on and did my Whoop of joy, because whilst I love A&E I do also still love wound dressings. And particularly things like Larvae and VAC. They’re terribly exciting in my little world. On discovering that I could dress using VAC she was terribly happy. And I went my merry way, dressing the wound near the middle of the shift. Only I couldn’t get it to work. The machine generates a vacuum, and needs a good seal to the skin; except it kept reporting ‘leak detected’. I spent a good hour fiddling with the dressing – and this is what prompted me to need to go to another ward – where they use VAC a lot.

    There’s a dinky little special bung you can put on the tube to check that the VAC pump is working – and we didn’t have one – given that we had the machine and some dressings ‘n that was all. So I hunted high and low, I redressed following some advice from that ward, but I could not get one. I was so frustrated. As far as I could tell the dressing was fine – but I could not get this bung to check. In the end I had to leave it to be redressed with an ordinary dressing…

    …but when I went back yesterday I put more effort in and realised there’s another way to check the machine; and it turned out that machine was buggered. Of course, not before I’d redressed her wound, patched it enumerable times for the possible ‘leaks’, and then sat and had a good long think about it. Still, I hope to see it tomorrow, and I suspect that since it’s only Naomi and I who can do VAC dressings, well, it’ll be off – but hopefully now we’ve got a working machine I can do a neater dressing and we can get on with healing that wound.

    I realise that’s incredibly dull for most people, but for me the achievement of getting it all on and working – and the hope that she’ll have her wound heading towards healed made me wander round going ‘you may all bow down to me, for I am queen of VAC’ for a bit :-)

    The last few days also saw Kathryn down here, visiting. I was phenomenally nervous, I endeavoured to tidy and clean – which is hard, ‘cos my house doesn’t really do Tidy or Clean. I panicked about Brick not starting (he did), I worried about what she’d think of me when she came. In the end, apart from the exhaustion of my job spilling over into my home life (me falling asleep somewhat early :-/ ) and a stair related incident we both seemed to enjoy ourselves a lot. I’m still kinda nervous about things, but I think it’s starting to settle a little.

    Here, those of you who’ve done long distance relationships; any advice?

    She brought me flowers! My whole lounge smells gorgeous. Anyway, we headed out and I actually discovered nice bits of, well, ‘near’ slough :-) She also continued her endeavours to corrupt me* – with us watching Rent – which was excellent (so long as you’re not averse to musicals). Actually, technically, Happiness of the Katakuris is a musical (along with every other genre of film). She also continued her introduction to the Clumsy Lovers… (currently in my CD player)…

    Anyway. I now have my shifts for April. If you want to book me for a day or two, now is your opportunity…

    * To be at least slightly fair, I did get this so we could watch it when she came down…

  • Distance is relative

    So, yesterday was an interesting day; I managed to haul myself out of bed early to go look at an EV. The guy had said it was probably only good for parts; but I never trust other people’s judgement in these issues – because often people can be a bit blinded by dirt and grot.

    In this case though, he was probably right. It’s rather sad, apparently there were only 110ish of these little cars made:

    Very sickly Enfield EV

    This being a rather sad example. I reckon it’s had about 20 years of hard service followed by about 10 of sitting unloved in the corner of a council yard. Although the body is glass fibre and aluminium, the chassis is a box-section affair with a big plate of steel on top of it, and that has basically completely disintegrated. If I didn’t have 3 projects on the go (the minor, my pink ‘zed, and the odds and sods on Brick) plus the house then I’d be tempted, because I really think it’s a shame that it’s going to go for parts, but it is a big project. The body’d have to come off the floor, and then it’d need a new floor, new electrics, new batteries, the door, if it is salvagable would need an awful lot of work – it’s not like you can pick these things up down at your local dealer…

    I rather like them though. They have a dinky charm.

    Anyway, so that was a longish treck in the morning – not aided by Brick having a bit of a flat battery in the morning. I have been having this suspicion that the alternator isn’t *really* keeping up – I’ve had this faint feeling for a while. Things like the lights dimming at idle, and this faint but almost certain feeling that the starter was going slower each morning…

    At any rate, it’s not charging effectively, which is another thing to look into. I was meant to be going to the parts day, but… well, I’ll get to that.

    So after the enfield trip I decided I was going to pick up Brian’s birthday present. Great plan, except that saturday in Slough is a slow-traffic affair. Brick – having come off the motorway – was very hot. Traffic was fairly much stationary. We actually sat through two cycles of one set of lights without moving, and I started to get the feeling that the engine wasn’t entirely running well. Then he stalled, in a line of traffic outside Tesco. With superhuman, she-ra like strength I lept out (having discovered he wasn’t in a hurry to restart) and managed to push the car (using a run up) half onto the pavement, thus allowing people to get past. For once, I don’t think I even got honked at.

    So we sat for a few minutes, I took the opportunity to reclean the rotor arm, and when the engine had cooled down a bit, it restarted. Still didn’t really idle, but with some effort I got us turned around and headed home. I suspect fuel vaporisation, which is annoying, ‘cos it’s not exactly *hot* at the moment, and I’m not quite sure what to do about that, except possibly knock up some sort of heat shield and change the layout of the fuel pipe.

    Aaaanyway, so then I walked into town (far more healthy, anyway), got Brian’s present and promptly turned round and walked back. It’s about 4 kms each way, and I’m not the fittest person on the planet (and also I do a fairly active job…), so after that I got home and was a bit tired. Having stripped the bed linen, put the laundry on I had a nap, this was also a cost cutting measure, because if I’m asleep I don’t need the heating on (alledgedly). I woke up freezing cold, and stuck the gas fire on… And then showered, dressed and headed to the strangest party.

    This, obviously, involved walking back to town. And then taking the tube. I am never, ever taking the tube again when there’s engineering work on. I’d ‘budgeted’ about half an hour to get to Brian’s house – reckoning it’d really take 20. It took about 40 minutes to get there – especially when the only option for reaching the Northern line was the Hammersmith and City line, which for some reason decided not to stop at King’s Cross. When I was going the other way on the Northern Line they implied that there was no Hammersmith and City connection too… so I had to go past King’s Cross and down to Moorgate. There was a lot of standing around and no information being given to customers. Or at least, the information being given didn’t aid you in getting anywhere, it simply told you that there was no service on the Circle and District lines…

    Anyway, I got to the party – but the tube situation meant that I had to leave early, which was a shame, because I had to leave at about the point I started to relax a bit. It has to be said that I did have a good time, but it was weird. Really weird. These are people I’ve not seen for 8 years, and I last saw them during a period in which I was not in the best state of mind.

    But the weird thing is that they really have just become older versions of themselves. Personality wise, they were pretty much the way I remember them. But they look…well, like they’re coming up on thirty. I forget that I’m nearly thirty, and most of my friends either are, or look younger than they are. So seeing this group of friends who are the same age as me, and don’t look old per-se, but definately look their age, and are all doing the same scarily responsible things as me (house ownership, pensions and jobs); many of whom are married, or getting married…. It was quite scary. And they’ve all kept in touch – which is quite weird – since they were school friends. Nice, but uncommon, I’d say. Anyway, it gave me this feeling like I’d teleported 8 years into the future. There were these grown up people, and here I am feeling completely out of my depth.

    At any rate, I had a good time, and I’ll probably see them again.

    It’s funny to think of them, writing for NME (I think), teaching and… in positions of responsibility.

    Anyway, I headed home, and had a bit of a nightmare with the tube, missing my connecting train by a good 20 minutes (despite leaving nearly an hour to get back to the station), but thankfully Kathryn was awake, so I had someone to make the journey back a bit more pleasant.

    When I got back (sorry, rambly post), I did try and persuade a cab driver to take me ‘most’ of the way back, but he declared that his meter starts running at a fiver (it normally costs 6 quid back to my street, so I’m slightly surprised by that (whatever time I’ve come back, it’s cost 6 quid)), so I walked, tempting myself with the thought of a kebab… Not that I was hungry, I’ve just not had one for so long I thought it’d be nice.

    So I wandered back, amazingly I’ve discovered the power of ‘layers’ and thus wasn’t cold. Oh, and thermal teeshirts from Alaska and Canada :-) And the stars were so pretty last night. It was a cold night – because the sky was completely clear, and even through the light pollution, I could see loads of stars. And then, as a special treat, as I approached my local kebab van (which, incidentally shut while I was looking at this), two groups of birds set forth each forming a beautiful V in the sky, the light from the earth reflecting off their light feathers producing a beautiful spectacle. The people on the other side of the road seemed to think I was a bit odd, as I just came to a stop and stared at the sky…

    …It was just supremely beautiful, and completely unexpected.

    Of course, when I got home I had to make the bed (*doh*) and I finally fell into bed and slept ’til 7 (thanks body), with some encouragement I managed to make it through to 1045 though, so now I’m pondering the rest of my day. I need to do some cleaning, and if I can get some reorganisation done in bedroom two I should be able to prep the bathroom for builders…. Not that I’ve got any yet. Lucky’s not brought back the spare copy of the plans, so I may have to photocopy mine, or somesuch, to give to the next lot of builders. Bloody sod people.

    I hate builders. Did I mention that?

  • Help!

    Yesterday I posted this link. I really like the song Songtario, but for me the crappy myspace interface doesn’t work properly. I can listen, but when I hit download I either get a 404 error or I get a big fat lot of nothing.

    Plllleeeease can someone who can make myspace be their serving wench download it for me and uh, mail/magic it to me by some means? I seem to have lost this battle…

  • There’s a faint irony to it all…

    So, today for the first time in a week and a half we were fully staffed. Sadly, today we also had 3 sick patients. Four actually, since I randomly discovered that one of my patients far from feeling ‘a little tired today’ as she said, in fact had attrociously poor blood pressure (52/38, for those who are interested). This lead to me going ‘hrm, manual BP. No, really is that low… Mrs X, I’m just going to tip the bed a bit’ (feet yoinked to being level with head), followed by me bleeping the doctor and saying to Helen ‘Um, could you put up this Gelofusin….’

    Still, she seemed to be doing a bit better when I left.

    More sadly, one of the patients died today. This, being a care of the elderly ward (which, I now learn is also second in line for CVA (stroke) patients), is not a wildly uncommon experience. But it was a real surprise, in-so-far as a few days ago it really looked like we’d got him better. Not well, but well enough that he could go off to a specialist ward who could deal with the underlying problems…

    So we were quite positive, then on Saturday he became unwell, and had battled on until today… I don’t think I’ve seen a ward quite so affected by one individual’s death, but he was so nice, and so were his family… A cloud just descended. Often when people die on our ward it’s expected and we cope better. This was really kind of a shock. And it was so quick. One minute he was being seen by drs, a few minutes later…

    So yeah, something about the fleetingness of existence…

    I don’t know, it’s all a bit weird. I can be sat at home and listening to new music, and pondering my plan of action for doing the bathroom, and yet earlier today I was dealing with death…

    Sometimes I am struck by the dichotomous nature of my life, and i find it odd.