extreme motorhomes

matthew and i went out for sunday lunch last week, after failing to secure a lunch in st columb minor (meals from 12-3 but they were out of food by 2!) we drove on round the coast to st merryn where we had a cavery.

after the meal we went to constantine and went down to mother ivey's bay the site of some of matthew's childhood holidays, on our way back to padstow we got stuck behind this monster of a camper van. it did seem a little extreme for the cornish lanes that we were traversing, especially as we had to stop every few hundred yards to allow cars coming the other way to get past. this meant that we spent a lot of time looking at the hydraulic bike rack on the back! it was austrian registered, but it does beg the question of what foriegners make of our road system that someone was prepared to drive that all the way from austria for a holiday in england?

it reminded me of the large motorhomes i saw at the royal cornwall show which could be yours for a mere £260,000 and an hgv licence. trouble is you definately wouldn't be able to take one of those down the small lanes, which means your holiday would be spent at motorway service stations.

anyway not long now until our weeks holiday in the yorkshire dales, so looking forward to it!

lejog

i've been meaning to post about this all summer, but failed. as indeed i've failed to put much on here recently, so much so that there is a bit of a backlog of postings, which may or may not appear in one fell swoop...

anyway back to lejog, don't worry this isn't about exercise or anything similarly strenous, it is the shorthand for land's end to john o'groats, should one attempt the journey in reverse it is apparantly jogle. once the days started to lengthen the number of cyclists seen on my journey's too and fro from truro also increased, and it took a little while to sink in as to why. but essentially these idiots, sorry brave folk are attempting to travese the full length of the country. a little internet research shows that the a30 is only attempted by the truely foolhardy and those who aren't interested in breaking records tend to use more minor roads to get through cornwall. i also discovered that coming through st austell is one recommended route with an overnight stop somewhere between par and lostwithiel.

therefore in the morning i often see those attempting the jogle as they set off on their last day in the saddle and in the evening i see those attempting lejog, no doubt a bit weary after their day in the saddle and contemplating all the days ahead!

i did see this group, who were very distinctive, alas they were not cycling at the time but had pulled over to the side of the road.

another namesake

following on from my previous blog entry, i saw another namesake on my way back from truro today. not mine but for my mother. it was an eddie stobart lorry, with the name angela jane, my mother's forenames. haven't yet seen an elizabeth sarah, but i will be looking out for it from now on.

how to work out if someone is an emmet

following on from my previous post on how to work out if the car in front is from 'up country' this post is dedicated to helping you establish if someone is an emmet (cornish term for someone who isn't cornish).

are they...

1. wearing a Lifeguard hoodie, when they clearly aren't

2. in a family group with two grumpy teenagers in tow

3. wearing shorts, welly boots and a kagoul

4. eating a full english breakfast at 11am in a cafe

5. wearing something from the Boden catalogue

6. carrying a Kath Kidston bag

7. showing too much very pale/ sunburnt skin

8. wearing a hairbraid

9. just left an expensive art gallery

10 ambling along in the middle of the road

11. loudly mispronouncing cornish place names

this isn't quite as easy as the car one to pin down on paper as there are various types of tourists. you have your Boden wearing, Kath Kidston sporting types through to your stag/ hen do parties. however it is generally very easy to spot an emmet, you can usually just tell.

in relation to the previous post on cars, i had some responses on facebook that included more suggestions for the list, generally involving behaviour on small, narrow, cornish lanes. and yesterday during my drive to penzance i was surrounded by easily spottable up country cars, i was clocking up points by the bucketload.

my namesake

when i go to the gp surgery for an inr test, the nurses use a special programme on the computer to monitor your results and tell you what dose of warfarin you should be taking. i've noticed that there is another patient on warfarin with the same surname as me, but he is an older gentleman, so there should be no confusing of results!

well today i saw him. i came in and gave my name at the desk and was told to sit down, and as i walked over to the chairs, i noticed this older man looking at me. i didn't think too much of it, picked up a magazine and sat down. (i picked up a camping and caravan magazine - what has come over me? all this camping must be going to my head! do i need treatment? can you have several sentences in a bracket?)

engrossed in my magazine (!?) i suddenly heard my surname, so jumped up and as i was doing so registered that it had been a mr the nurse had called for. and sure enough it was this gentleman who had got out of his chair and was walking towards the nurse. then i realised why he had been staring at me, he had heard my name as i came in and registered. no doubt, this being cornwall, he was trying to work out where i might fit in in his family tree! i don't think we are related, but i could be wrong.

on another note, my inr has dropped, no doubt due to a recent increase in immunosuppressant, i shall be back at the surgery next week...

holiday from hell?

after the first hour or so* i can report that the weekend's camping trip went reasonably smoothly. the tent stayed up - although it took longer than the 12 mins that vango say to put up - you can stand up in it and cook in it, the campsite was lovely with a good sea view and the weather was extraordinarily kind. so much so that i can plan the rest of my greenbelt trip in reasonable confidence knowing that i can always hide in my tent if things get too wet and muddy (my previous two experiences of greenbelt).

there was a lot of comparison's going on on the campsite - tent sizes/ styles/ cooking arrangements and so on. it was also quite fun guessing where people had come from and realising just how brave young romeo opposite was, coming camping with his girlfriend and her parents - and they were all in one tent!

we cooked on our new barbeque (ask matthew about barbequed toast), visited the tea rooms at Heligan, had a kip on saturday afternoon and had friends around for a barbeque on saturday evening. sunday morning was lovely and sunny so we revisited dodman point (picture above), which was only about a mile and a half away. it was here about 18 months ago that matthew proposed to me, then we had it to ourselves for a long time, this time we had to share with, amongst others, mr 'i love talking' from goran haven. we then packed up our tent and were home within half an hour. really quite civilised.

however on my way to work on tuesday morning i saw a family on their holiday. it was mizzling and they were about to tackle the hill outside tresillian on their bikes. dad had panniers and a pull along buggy thing on his bike (couldn't see if there was a child in it or if it had equipment), mum had panniers on her bike, eldest son (11ish) had panniers on his bike, and younger son (8ish) didn't. all i could think was - this is so not the kind of holiday that i could ever go on. camping might just about be doable, but a cycling and camping holiday - now way!

* within the first half hour, my choice of pitch was dissed. my suggestion re direction of tent was dissed. my guy rope directions were dissed (later proved to be right). when we got the direction of the ground sheet wrong i really was ready to go home.

holiday makers?

how to work out if the car in front is from 'up country' (on holiday in Cornwall).

is it/ does it have...

1. a foreign number plate

2. a VW campervan

3. a campervan (any make)

4. a roof box

5. a roof rack with surfboard(s)

6. a roof-rack with bike(s)

7. a roof-rack with boat

8. a roof-rack with canoe(s)

9. a shiny clean 4x4 with tow-hitch

10. towing a boat

11. contain any of the following - body boards/ windbreak/ cool box/ wetsuit/ picnic rug

12. being driven between 30- 40mph on a 60mph road

13. driver has just worked out he is in the wrong lane at the roundabout/ traffic lights

i actually saw just about all of these on the way into work this morning, so i am now thinking of a points system so i can start to rank my journeys too and fro from Truro. just how many points could i award for a foriegn plated vw campervan with a boat on the roof in the wrong lane at the trafalgar roundabout?

you will note that i have excluded caravans as they are just too easy to spot, as is in fact any car that is in the queue at Temple on the A30 on a friday or saturday.

camping

as mentioned in the previous post matthew and i are going to Greenbelt at the end of the month. this is a work trip for me, and matthew has very kindly agreed to join us. we shall be taking a group of young people from across Cornwall. this is the first time that i will have been since i was a teenager myself and my memory is mainly of mud!

we took stock of our camping equipment, we both had bits from before we were married, and decided that we needed a bigger tent to accommodate the two of us. matthew then took the requirements one step further by requesting one that he could stand up in (he is 6ft 4). so after some research we ordered a Vango Icarus 600. it is quite large, so large in fact that we can't actually put it up in our garden, so this weekend sees us undertake a camping trip just so that we can have a go at putting up the tent!

in the process of buying the tent we have of course spent more money on additional accessories, including a canopy extension, new airbeds (and pump) and a barbeque. tonight we wrote a list and discovered that if you go camping you need to take an awful lot of stuff with you. in comparison there is something quite simple about booking into a b&b.

for this trip we are going all the way to the Roseland (about 10 miles), we have gemmed up on the instructions including video and hopefully all should go quite smoothly. so please think of us tomorrow night, unlike the video i suspect we shall have a minor argument whilst erecting the tent, the tent pegs will be a lot harder to put in and it will definitely take longer than the suggested 12 minutes.

herman

we have a new lodger at home. goes by the name of herman. he doesn't require too much attention, just a daily chat and occasional feeding. though my budget for eggs, flour and sugar has suddenly increased. the bonus is that every ten days or so you do get some cake to eat! so he probably isn't doing too much for matthew's and my waistlines.

i was given a herman starter dough, with instructions of how to feed and care for it over ten days. on the tenth day you divide it into five, save one as your next starter, cook one and give the others away to your friends. worrying that i might run out of friends, i have discovered that if you only give him half quantities, you have enough mix for 3 portions and therefore only have to give one away or (some could say even better) cook two cakes.

i have cooked the original recipe and then had fun experimenting with different ones, so far a carrot cake, two lemon drizzle, one chocolate and one coffee. the carrot got given to my aunt in thanks for putting me up for the night (it was then put in the freezer to my uncle's disappointment), one lemon and the chocolate are lurking in the freezer. the rest have proved to be very tasty and moist. i did try and make some biscuits, but they didn't work too well.

this is quite good timing as i am building up a stock of cakes to take away to Greenbelt at the end of the month. but if anyone would like to take a herman and have a go themselves, please ask.

good life update

just to update you on our garden produce. we've had a few, very tasty, strawberries, but with only four plants there were never going to be loads, however the plants are reflowering so we may get a second crop. the potatoes were a let down. having had loads of healthy looking leaves, they suddenly wilted, so we decided to harvest and got a lot of very small, but again tasty, potatoes. i think ants were the problem here, the bin was full of them when matthew harvested.

my carrot got attacked and was never more than a very skinny root. the beans are now flowering, but seem to need copious amounts of water, similarly with the tomatoes.

to date the success has been the chilli plant and we have harvested four now, with more setting, in fact in a few minutes i hope to eat a lovely chilli con carne made with homegrown chilli!

so in summary, not a brilliantly productive garden so far, but still some hope for the future!

little miss sunshine

yesterday was my postponed nine month dental check up. it was postponed from the easter holidays as i was a bit poorly back then, so it got rearranged for the summer holidays.
for various reasons i have kept with my dentist in hereford. yes it is a bit of a trek back there now, but it generally gives an excuse to visit friends and it is nhs! so although it was a four hour journey each way, involved an overnight stay with relatives and quite a bit of petrol, the actual treatment only cost me £16.75 - bargain! apparantly i have got lovely teeth and because i was a such a good patient i got a free sticker - i chose the Little Miss Sunshine one!

bargains?

today matthew and i 'saved' £76. one of our favourite glass shops Jo Downes had a 70% off sale, and for once there was no 'up to' in tiny weeny letters on the sign. even better this reduction was on everything (except mirrors but it did say that in reasonably large letters, they were 20% off), so we bought a soap and moisturiser holder (see picture) for the Moulton Brown products that we bought in Bath, another sale 'bargain', and some other bits and pieces that either we will use or that will be finding their way as various Christmas and Birthday presents over the coming months. in all we purchased 8 items for less than the full price cost of the soap holder - not bad.

this almost beats the amazing £300 that we saved at the Swindon outlet centre back in May, there we had to spend £150 to save the £300. actually mathematically it probably does beat that shopping trip, it's just that the numbers are more impressive on the Swindon trip.

but the question is - how much of this sale stuff is actually a bargain. do you really need it? will you use it? all questions to be considered. in Marks and Spencers amongst the debris of their women's sale clothes one woman did comment that what seemed like a bargain in the shop wasn't always a bargain by the time it got home.

if you notice the time of this post - yes it really is stupid o'clock - i can't sleep, and having done so well on my 'bargains' earlier in the day, i feel it is now time to surf the net looking for more - but don't tell matthew!

another surgery update

the latest innovation in our surgery is a self service check-in, if there is a queue at the reception desk, you can go to a screen and enter your date of birth. it then recognises you, confirms your appointment, tells you that you have checked in and to wait until you are called.


in some ways this is a bonus as it saves hanging around in the queue behind someone with a tedious query on their prescription, but is it the start of a slippery slope? how long until there are no reception staff? and if you follow that train of thought, how long until the doctor is a screen - though to a point nhs direct is already doing that.

absence

i see this phrase a lot on blogs...
'sorry for not posting recently, i will try and do better', or a variation and it looks as if i am now posting it myself!

excuses:-
2 weeks away on holiday - rather expensive but very nice
new job is taking a bit of time to get my head around
i'm tired
i can't always think of something amusing to say!

so i have a few posts up my sleeve and will add them on when time permits. in the meantime i hope you haven't missed me too much!

the drugs don't work

i'm getting very tired at the moment. i suppose you could say that the drugs aren't working - yet. although i've started on a new immunosuppressant it takes two to three months to fully work, which makes sense as that was how long it took for me to get really ill when i came off the last lot of immunosuppressants in december. also, in an attempt to build up tolerance, i started on a lower dose and increased it the other week.
combined with the drug taking, i am also rather busy. both at work and socially. last weekend was the royal cornwall show which matthew was heavily involved in and i went along for the friday afternoon and saturday. all great fun but also very tiring. the last two weeks i have also had some evening commtitments for work, which do make a very long day. although i take the time back, it isn't always immediate.
this tiredness has also led to a slight increase in the pleuritic pain that i am still experiencing and i struggle with hills and long flights of stairs. as was highlighted at a meeting on monday night where i parked at the bottom of the valley and had to walk up a flight of stairs to the house near the top. i arrived very breathless, much to the shock of the host! fortunately it didn't take too long to recover.
so all in all i am tired.
fortunately i'm off on holiday!! at long last, it seemed like ages ago that we booked the time off, but it is nearly upon us. we will be spending the first week in bath, and have booked some time at the new bath spa - i am so looking forward to it. only two days to go...

house for sale

this attractive property in ongar, essex is for sale. a bargain at £185, 950. for further details here

the good life

matthew and i have been undertaking some gardening recently. we are not quite tom and barbara in the good life, but we now have some veg growing. in the past i have been known to grow a few veggies in pots and when epping forest district council gave us all wheelie bins i took the opportunity to convert my old dustbin into a potato bin. however the last two summers have both involved moving house, so there was no veg growing.

back in april i sowed some seeds - tomato, beans and carrots. we also planted some potatoes in the bin, i did protest that it was a bit early, but my friendly live-in farmer told me that they were already planting them in the fields! my friendly live-in farmer then refused to let the seeds germinate in the house as the compost was manure based and would therefore smell, so they had to make do with the garage. the carrots were the first to sprout, eventually followed by the tomatoes. the beans however refused point blank to show any sign of growth. then disaster overtook the carrot seedlings as they proceeded to die off one by one.


last week i visited my local country store, aka cornwall farmers, bought some bean plants and grow bags and then had an evening of potting up. we had also in the meantime acquire a pepper and a chilli plant.


so now we have two pots of beans, seven tomato plants (half cherry toms and half normal toms), a chilli plant, a pepper plant, a dustbin of potatoes and 1 carrot. yep. 1 carrot! maybe i should plant some more seedlings, but i am not sure that they would fare much better next time around. the strawberry plants that i already had have survived the winter and are already flowering and setting strawberries, so for a garden that has no flowerbed we are doing quite well. we are experimenting with a new watering system seen at a friends house, using wine bottles - will let you know how that goes, but since installing them it has done nothing but rain!


i am reasonably confident that we will be eating some of this in the next couple of months and if you live in cornwall you may even get to taste some yourself! the next hurdle the plants will have to survive is our two week holiday starting next weekend... i will of course keep you updated.

England Car Flags

why?!?

health update

i saw my rheumatologist last week. it was a late appointment 5.30pm, which meant that it was gone 6 before i actually had my consulation. the blood test result has come back from bristol and tells us that i shouldn't reacte to the immunosuppressant that he wants to put me on now, though there is concern that in the past my white cell count has been very low. so i am to start it on a low dose and work my way up to a full dose over a couple of months.

in the meantime he agreed with me on my choice to stick at 15mg of steroid as i was still getting 'pleural pains', this was echoed in my recent blood test results which showed slightly raised inflammation levels.

i am to go back in two months, i was suspecting that this might be 6 months if my two week follow up from being discharged was anything to go by, however the appointment has already come through for July.

on other health related issues, i am still visiting the gp surgery for warfarin tests, which have been a bit all over the place - not sure why. however the aquarium now has fish in it!! and there are some tasteful landscape pictures on the walls. still not entirely sure about having to listen to the radio while you wait, but so far i'm not having to wait too long. the other big bonus about the new surgery is that there is generally just one person on reception and the other staff are in the office behind. in the old surgery the receptionist was in the office behind a glass screen in the corridor and it used to really wind me up when you were trying to tell the staff you had arrived or to make an appointment and they would continue talking to the other staff in the office rather than deal with you. now they can't!

This has never happened to me before...

some of you may know that i own a house in ongar in essex. when i moved here nearly two years ago now, i tried to sell this house, but it proved impossible. negotiations with the building society weren't particularly helpful either and it took the intervention of a financial adviser to allow me to rent it out. fortunately i struck gold and a potential long term tenant was interested, he had had to retire due to ill-health and his daughters, who lived near ongar, wanted him nearby.

today i got a letter from the managing agents telling me that he has died. as the title to the post says, this has never happened to me before.

in some ways this is a bit of a blessing, matthew and i are wanting to move, but found ourselves struggling a bit - to get the size house we want in the area we like we really need to sell my house. but you don't want to kick a tenant out, try and sell the house, realise that the market is still poor and then have to find a new tenant. so this does now give us an opportunity to 'test the market'.

however i now find myself with a couple of questions that fall under modern etiquette, and i have no idea of the answers.

firstly do i send a condolance card to his family? i've never met him or his family, but we have had a relationship over the last 17 months, he has paid me to live in my house and i in return have had to ensure that the house was safe and the gas appliances didn't poison him. so does one send a card?

secondly, how firm or lenient should i be in allowing his family to move his belongings out? technically i should have a months notice, but is it easier to tell them they have until the end of may (which has been paid up), but then again that is short notice for a bereaved family?

to be honest, once i realised that the property is potentially vacant, all i want to do is rush back to essex, bring the painters in get an estate agent around to start marketing the property. it will be a lot easier now that we no longer need hips - as announced, appropriately enough by Eric Pickles, the mp for brentwood and ongar!!

slight blot on the landscape, in hunting for a picture to put with this post i have just discovered that my neighbour is again trying to sell his house, my house is the one on the right in the picture.

handluggage only - update

i should probably be telling you about my time away with my lovely DYO colleagues, the sandcastle building, the comedian, the view of the sea from the conference room, the wonderful speaker et.

but i just need to tell you that airport security obviously isn't up to much these days. when i arrived at my hotel, i discovered that i had unknowingly taken some liquid shoe polish through security and it hadn't been picked up (probably in the suitcase from when matthew and i went to the devon life magazine food and drink awards last november!). but then on my last day, i realised that i had taken some tweezers by mistake as well, they had hidden themselves in the back pocket of a bag i keep my various medicines in. whilst this was a relief to my hairy eyebrows, i was begining to panic about getting this contraband back on my return flight.

i needn't of worried, my bag passed through the x-ray machine unchallenged, and because the two security officers were making a meal of frisking the two passengers ahead of me, i managed to go through unfrisked!

by the way it was a good few days away, and flying was worth it - even though i missed the begining, i had a lovely view right over the Eden project as we descended back into Newquay.

handluggage only

i'm off to a conference over the next few days in Lytham St Annes, it will be an opportunity to meet up with some of my colleagues from around the country and i am quite looking forward to it. back in february when i was considering how to get there i realised that it was cheaper and quicker to fly rather than go by the train. it does mean that i am missing most of the first day, but i also don't have to catch the 5.55am train to start a journey that would involve 3 train changes, take over 7 hours and i'd still get there late. in fact as i type they have already started. but my taxi (my father in law) is arriving in about an hour and whisking me to newquay airport for the first leg of my journey.

when booking i choose the handluggage only option as bmibaby wanted to charge for hold luggage. it is only in the last couple of days that i have begun to realise the limitations of only carrying handluggage. in terms of clothes etc not a problem, it is more that i am having to cut back on toiletries to comply with the liquid limits. i can't take my tweezers or nail scissors, so i am glad it is only two nights that i will be away. i'm also having to radically downsize my handbag as i can only take one piece of handbagage!!

however with the advance of the internet i have already checked in on my flights and rather bizarrely had to answer questions like 'did you pack your own case' and 'could anyone have tampered with your case since you packed it', when i hadn't even packed it or begun to think about what to pack. i know some people pack stuff for their holidays several days or even a week or two before going. me, i'm a bit last minute on this and tend to pack on the day of travel, or the night before if it is an early start.

however i can report that with an hour to go, i am packed and just sorting out the last few things and trying to leave a tidy house for matthew.

by the way don't feel too sorry for matthew being on his own for two nights. he has already arranged a meal at his parents on wednesday night and is going to see some friends tonight. he also told me that he is looking forward to having the bed to himself - cheeky!

GP surgery update

had a blood test and an inr test yesterday. after a blip the inr seems to be back at the level it should be, but unfortunately i have to go back for another blood test as the bottles weren't labelled correctly and so they couldn't be tested (ummm).

the surgery still looks a bit bare, but the out of date magazines have arrived - so there is now something to read, and there are some books for the children in addition to the toy cars that were there at the beginning.

but the latest arrival is an aquarium!!! the staple of chinese restaurants and gp surgeries the world over. it hasn't got any water in it let alone fish, but it is now in the waiting room reading to sooth all those waiting patients.

there is also a nice plaque on the wall announcing that the surgery was officially opened by the Lord Lieutenant Lady Mary Holbarow. if there were a pair of twee curtains there, they are there no longer!!

£7.50 cream tea!!!

i should be talking about how brilliantly matthew rowed over the weekend and how lovely the isles of scilly are or indeed about the sight of 122 boats lined up on the start line. however the real talking point of our weekend on the scillies was a £7.50 cream tea on st martin's.

this year we went a day earlier than usual (although i have only been once before so not sure i can really say usual) so that could go to one of the off islands and we chose st martins - partly so i could see Great Bay, which we were given a picture of for a wedding present, and so that we could visit some of matthew's relatives. i was also quite keen to visit another island other than st mary's as this was my fourth trip to the scillies in under two years and all i had seen was hugh town.

we had a very pleasant day, we walked across the island, dropped in on the relatives, had lunch on the beach at Great Bay and waked to the daymark at the far end. we returned to higher town to catch the return ferry calling in at a cafe for tea on the way.

we timed it well as it had just started to rain and the rain got heavier whilst we were there. matthew went to place the order and discovered that they only had one scone left so ordered a slice of apple cake as well. fortunately another mis-shapen (and previously rejected) scone was found so we were able to have one each, but when he returned to the table matthew was looking somewhat aghast at the cost of the tea which came to £13.95.

one of the other customers later discovered that the cream tea was £7.50 and tea for one was £2.50, so we had paid £3.95 for the cake (with clotted cream). the two scones were large, the quantity of jam and cream adequate but £7.50!! even accounting for the ingredients having to come from the mainland via st mary's it still rates as one of the most expensive cream teas i've had. the best value one was at oxwich bay on the gower- some years ago now but you got bread and butter and a piece of cake as well as the scones and jam. i can't remember how much it was but i was a student at the time and we all thought it an excellent deal.

i cannot write a post about a cream tea and not mention the correct 'cornish' way of preparing your scone, ie jam first as opposed to the incorrect 'devon' way, where the cream is put on the scone first. the cause of much debate even at a training day in somerset where we were given devon cream scones. a tourist 'emmet' can be easily identified by how the cream tea is eaten, you have been warned!

lack of focus

I've been a bit silent for the last ten days or so. partly to do with work and partly to do with a long weekend on the isles of scilly watching matthew rowing. i'll have to fill in some of the blanks later.

today i was back to being elizabeth as i had an opthalmology outpatients appointment. this was at penrice, the st austell hospital and meant that i could walk there. a good thing as part of the procedure of looking into your eyes is to dilate the pupils, which means you lose focus for a while and life becomes a little blurry and driving home would have been highly dangerous. it only took me 35 mins to walk there and slightly shorter on the return journey as it is more downhill. it was also a good thing to walk as the parking was particularly horrendous today. an older gentleman who was waiting for his appointment filled me in a bit with the history of the hospital and informed me that the land was given with a condition that there was never to be a charge for parking. which explains why it appears to be the only hospital in the world that doesn't charge for parking and would make a stay in penrice an awful lot cheaper than my recent stay at treliske.

another far too young consultant, dr jones (david) looked into my eyes and found nothing untoward except a tiny 'insignificant' cataract in the left eye. which is all good news, though one has to question when an 'insignificant' might become a 'significant'.

then i had a very painful walk home, trying to find shade from the sun and doing some of it with my eyes shut. why when it seems to rain in cornwall 95% of the time, was my walk home on a beautiful sunny morning? i'm at home now waiting for my eyes to return to normal so i can drive to work and have just hung out the white bedsheets, more pain! i might have to dig out my sunglasses in a minute.

notice of risk of redundancy

have had a slightly surreal weekend. on friday afternoon there was a staff meeting at work so that we could be updated on the ongoing structural changes in our work. we have been aware of these for a while now and with a new bishop and following a staffing review, a new staff structure was being created. we have also been told that there would be loss of jobs and as i work in one of the affected departments was aware that this would personally affect me.

however i was surprised by the method chosen and the number of job cuts that are being made. there are eleven of us on notice of risk of redundancy, 5 officers and 6 admin staff, and whilst there are 7 new posts being created, it doesn't take much effort to 'do the math'. i think the timing has also been a bit pants as we were told on friday afternoon with a series of interviews, for those affected, set up for today and wednesday, but then we were told to go home for the weekend and forget about it. as if...

unfortunately today i am only half fit for work and have a meeting this evening, so have not been in the office today, so am missing out on the general thoughts of my colleagues. i think more is being made clear through the individual interviews, but until then there are a lot of question marks and not even the chance to look at the summary job descriptions for the available posts. hopefully i will find out more when i am in tomorrow.

i suppose there is no easy way to deal with this kind of job loss, and in some ways treating everyone the same is fair. but some work has already been done in this re-organisation and those posts were treated slightly differently with posts being advertised and people invited to apply. i had assumed and from my recollection of previous meetings been told that this was the way that this process was being organised. therefore it was a shock to be told that i was at risk of redundancy in the way that i was. matthew and i have been doing some talking over the weekend and obviously there are a couple of the new jobs that i shall apply for, though i have to also say on a personal level that the timing is also pants as i really do not want to be thinking about application forms and interviews at this particular point, i would rather be concentrating on getting fully fit.

talking of which, i had an inr this morning, which has climbed to the heady heights of 5.6, so have to reduce warfarin and go back again next week. still building points towards my frequent visitor status...

oven cleaning update

i thought i would let you know that yesterday i finally got around to cleaning the oven. it only took two weeks to build up the motivation, with a little help from matthew who left the can of oven cleaner in a prominent place!

it was not the worst oven i have ever had to clean, that honour belongs to the oven that came with my house in essex - though technically it was the grill pan that was the worst. on first inspection it looked as if there was a thick layer of grease on top of a layer of tin foil. closer inspection revealed that there were actually at least three layers of tin foil, each with a layer of fat and grease inbetween. delightful! actually that house was one of the messiest ones that i have inherited, it makes me wonder why i spend so much time cleaning up my house when i move.

today is one of my 'fit days' as opposed to 'sick days', so i am well enough to work... after the weekend i will be working monday evening and tuesday and wednesday before having two days holiday to go to the isles of scilly for the gig rowing. funnily enough i am looking forward to a few days away.

fit note v sick note

this fit note thing is a bit weird, having worked out a phased return to work it now appears that one day i am considered fit for work, the next i'm not. so what should i do on days when i am not working? retreat to the sofa and day time tv?

one of my biggest faults is probably that i take too long to recognise that i'm not well and should take some time off to recover, combined with the fact that i often go back to work too early, when actually taking a further day or two might have been better in the long run.

take for example the time i had an operation on my head. the operation was on a monday morning, i went to my aunt and uncle's to convalesce and was back home on the thursday of the following week. the next day i went to my gp to get a sick note for my time off and to ask him to sign me back to work as i had to take some young people away for the weekend that evening. he promptly signed me off work for another two weeks and told me what i did in my spare time was up to me!

today i feel at a bit of a loose end. i went to work on monday for five hours and was quite tired by the end of it. yesterday i had a meeting in the afternoon and came home quite tired. today i am not to work, and i am twiddling my thumbs - there is plenty to do housework wise, but that doesn't inspire me! i know that i have a long to do list waiting for me, but officially i can't touch it. and tomorrow i am not working either...

i don't feel that i can gad around town, do a little shopping, lunch with friends etc whilst i'm not well, but i am not wanting to sit around the house all day either.

so any suggestions gratefully received...

what i have done so far today is - set up my wormery (purchased the other week, but you had to send off for the worms and they arrived in the post this morning) and walk to the chemists to pick up a prescription. the walk was a lot easier than when i attempted it last week, which is progress. i can also report progress on the landscaping at the new gp surgery, more plants have been put in and there was a man working on it when i walked past. it really does not look like the picture on the previous post, but i can't find a more up to date one. i also had a facebook conversation with one of my cousins and admired some of his course work via the medium of youtube. isn't modern technology wonderful!

fit note = back to work

it had to happen one day, but now i am back at work...

last week the doctor gave me one of these new 'fit notes' (as opposed to sick notes) and we decided that i would attempt a return to work this week. fortunately work are happy with the suggestion that i have a 'planned re-entry' and i sat down with my line-manager and my diary and we worked through the next four weeks, looking at what days i would work and those that i wouldn't. it was a matter of prioritising meetings and so if i don't come to yours - sorry it's not a priority!

in many ways i was grateful to see my desk again, though even just writing that might imply that i am obviously not well, but it was a bit quiet as my colleague was working in north cornwall today. though maybe that was for the good as i was able to put my head down and work through the emails and the post and come up with an a4 page of 'to do's', but bear in mind this is also on top of the 'to do's' that i had prior to being ill.

anyway this week i worked today 11-4, have a meeting tomorrow afternoon and then another one on friday afternoon (very important one). i did also have a training day on saturday but at lunch time an email came through cancelling it, which in some ways i am disappointed by, but as i now feel very tired after a few hours work is possibly a good thing.

it was also a good day to be back as i had missed some cake whilst i was away (birthday/ leaving do's) and today was claire's birthday and she had brought some cakes - so i enjoyed a jelly tot cupcake with my afternoon tea.

lady of leisure - it's exhausting!

you would have thought that having time on your hands would be fun, but let me tell you it can be exhausting!

yesterday my mother-in-law took me to charlies (a coffee shop in charlestown (a fishing village just south of st austell)) for coffee. terry (my father-in-law) had arranged a meeting at their house at 11.30, so marcia very kindly thought to take me out. just about every time i go to charlies i meet someone i know and yesterday was no exception and what started out as coffee at 11, soon merged into lunch at 12.15. just as marcia and i were finishing our lunch, terry finished his meeting and decided to come down and join us. and just as he was finishing his lunch in walked another lady from the church who had decided, on the spur of the moment to come down to charlestown to have a coffee and a walk on the beach whilst enjoying the sunshine. so we stayed and caught up with each others news whilst maureen had her coffee.

so we didn't leave charlies until around 2pm!

then we had a little wander down to the gift shop before marcia brought me home. i was surprisingly tired, it is amazing how exhausting sitting, eating, drinking and talking can make you.

as one of matthew's friends says 'i am looking forward to going back to work for a rest!'

House visitors

it is amazing just how many people come to your house in a day. matthew normally leaves for work first and when i leave i lock the door, get in my car and drive to truro. then i don't really think about my house until i return sometime in the evening.

being at home, you suddenly realise how many people visit or even telephone your house. i have fielded a few calls from talktalk - for some reason they want us to change to a new package, which costs more and offers less than the one we are currently on (?) - and other sales people during the last ten days or so. fortunately they all seem to want matthew so i'm suitably vague as to when he might be around.

yesterday though we had an unprecedented number of people wanting to deliver things. i had to go to the doctors first thing and i returned before the postman had been. a few minutes later there was a noise at the front door. i went to investigate - it was a leaflet from the libdems wanting our vote. then a while later another noise - this time it was the postman, one letter, two leaflets. a while later whilst on the phone i was aware that something else was being pushed through the letter box - the kleeneze catalogue. then a while later some leaflets from lidl with their offers of the week. by now i was ready to go shopping (not at lidl).

when i came back there was a gardener mowing next doors lawn, once i had parked he came over to me with a parcel that had been delivered in my absence.

it would appear that our house is being targeted by leafleters - there must be some money in delivering them, but the reality is that apart from the letter and the parcel, everything else went in the recycling. it appears that the recycling gets more post than matthew and i!

the cupboard under the sink

it's not that i'm bored but...

i decided it was time to clean the oven...

below is an inventory of the cupboard under the sink in the kitchen:

persil washing powder (7.5kg box)

fabric conditioner (5l)

flash floor cleaner

dishwasher tablets (3boxes - 153)

window cleaner (x2)

baby bio

pledge

oxywhite powder

bleach

dylon whitener

cream cleaner (x2)

fairy liquid (x2)

astonish

finish rinse aid

neutradol carpet cleaner

silver polish

clothes stain remover (x3)

silk and delicate wash liquid

sticky stuff remover

water filter cartridges (x2)

compost crock filter (x2)

nik wax waterproofing

chamois leather

all purpose cleaner

1001 carpet cleaner

antibac spray

disinfectant

bleach spray

kitchen cleaner (x3)

shoe protector spray

dishwasher powder

2x sponge scourer

stain removal block

barkeepers friend

butane gas

super glue

lint roller and spare roll

dusters (x3)

microfibre cloth (x3)

multipurpose cloths (x24)

pan scourer (x2)

dishclothes (x2)

lots of stuff, but no oven cleaner.

i blame this excess of cleaning products on the amalgamation of two households last may, just before we got married. we did manage to sort and sell unwanted furniture, and clothes, though i still have boxes of books and ornaments in the garage. we have now eaten the duplicate food stocks (though for some reason we seemed to have had completely separate tastes in herbs and spices - lots of jars!!).

the mega amounts of washing powder/ conditioner and dishwasher tablets were due to 'deals' at matthew's work. though i did work out that we now have enough dishwasher tablets to last us almost a year - assuming a wash every other day and allowing for holidays...

i hasten to add that we do clean - it's just i prefer not to use too many chemicals. however i have now gone and bought some mega oven cleaner - now waiting to be re-motivated to use it!

otherwise have been feeling a bit weary today - probably because i didn't sleep too well last night.

everyone needs good neighbours?

one thing that has surprised me slightly is the number of our neighbours who were aware of the ambulance being outside our house in the early hours of the morning. the paramedics must have arrived around half past five and were gone by six, but they were spotted. our immediate neighbour does leave for work at 6.20 every morning, so unsurprisingly he was around as we were leaving for bodmin and managed a quick chat with matthew, later on in the week he was sent around by his mother to find out how i was, but also to offer any help. he informed matthew that another neighbour in the corner also wanted to know what had been happening.

i think all areas must have them, the nosey neighbour. well our road does and her house is strategically placed to look right down the close and she can keep an eye on everyone's comings and goings. i have even heard from another neighbour that when she had been away for a couple of weeks her husband had gone around asking everyone what the news was, so he could update her on her return!

last saturday they popped in. mr neighbour had been awake and seen the ambulance. in order to try and find out more she had asked our immediate neighbour what had happened, who at that point didn't know a great deal and had even tried calling on us one afternoon in the week, obviously matthew was getting home too late in the evening for them to pop in then. so there they were on saturday afternoon wanting 'find out what had happened', please note, not 'how are you'. a slight but very different difference!

extreme bonjela testing - update

my apologies for not updating you on the extreme bonjela testing that was mentioned in a previous post.

having written my intentions to numb the ulcers on my tongue and then try to consume either the sweet chilli flavoured crisps (impulse buy) or some chocolate (thanks to some of my visitors), i begun the experiment.

as the chocolate was already open i decided to start with that (why waste a whole packet of crisps?), having given the gel time to work, i then consumed one piece of swiss chocolate. a slight tingly sensation, not too bad. i then tried a second, that hurt!

i'm not sure if it was the saliva washing away the bonjela after my first mouthful or if i hadn't applied enough (apparantly you need 1cm of gel - but i'm not sure if it is for each ulcer or the entire tongue) but i have to report that in my case the bonjela let me down.

the ulcers have nearly gone and are probably doing me a favour at the moment as i can only eat small amounts of chocolate. this is good as i have a small pile of chocolate to get through from both the kindness of my hospital visitors and the easter bunny! i have however eaten the crisps, one side of my mouth is worse than the other, so as long as i crunch on my left, it's not too painful!

on another note, according to this months good housekeeping magazine, you can use bonjela to numb your eyebrows before plucking them - bet you never thought of that...

picture

now that i have full access to a computer and have discovered that people are still reading this, and want me to continue (are you mad), i'm slowing adding bits to the blog template. one thing that is, i feel, important is pictures - tell a thousand words and so on, so hopefully most posts will now have a picture that vaguely relates to the content.

i've added a nice picture of the trelawney wing at treliske to the front page. this is the side entrance, the one that i arrived by on the 26th, in a green and yellow van - not too dissimilar to the one in the picture. i spent a couple of hours in a + e before being whisked up to the high dependancy unit (hdu) immediately above. take note of the single window immediately above the ambulance canopy, this was my view to the outside world for two days, not only could i see trees, but also the entrance to the maternity wing, where there were dads on mobiles making phone calls.

after my care needs were downgraded i was then moved to roskear ward which occupies the next wing down in the picture and my view was the yard inbetween the two wings and if i craned hard enough i could see the emergency helicopter either taking off or landing - just.

the slightly bizarre thing about the layout of the trelawney wing is that if you enter from the car-parks you actually come in on level one - which was the level of the wards and to get to a+e you would have to go down a floor (but you aren't allowed to get to a+e that way).

one of the evenings i was in roskear i walked with matthew to the front entrance - only to discover that it is being remodeled. i made to step over the threshold as matthew egged me on 'one more step and you can breath that fresh air', when i was greeted by a faceful of cigarette smoke! it appears that patients still have to have their daily fix of nicotine no matter how ill they are, and the nearest place they can do it - right by the front entrance!

frequent visitor award

went back to the gp surgery today, my inr and warfarin dosage had gone haywire whilst i was on the antibiotics, so i needed to do a new blood test and then on to see the gp to plan the next couple of weeks.

the surgery has only just moved from a rather cramped bungalow near the station in st austell to a brand new building about quarter of a mile from our home. i was a visitor there on their very first day of opening, and was back there again on the third day and the fourth day. in fact the one disappointment of being admitted to treliske on the friday was that i missed the opportunity to have been in the new surgery four days out of the first five, as i was unable to make my appointment that morning. had i made that appointment i was going to ask if there was some kind of award that i would be entitled to enter myself for, 'most frequent visitor' or similar. but then i realised that it might make me seem like a real hypochondriac so maybe i'll just let that one rest.

the new surgery also needed explaining to a few of the medical professionals during my hospital stay, some knew it was changing, others didn't.

after my visit today (it has now been open for two weeks) i can report that the building still looks shiny new, but the offices are beginning to look a bit more lived in - ie packing boxes have gone. the waiting rooms are a bit bare - no mass of posters advertising various help services/ clinics/ websites etc and one child was telling her mum how she might bring some of her old toys down, she obviously felt there weren't enough.

the upshot of my visit is that my inr/ warfarin dose still need to settle down (an appointment has been booked for a week's time) and i have been signed off work for a week - to start with. the gp was supposed to have used these new 'fit notes' that are being launched today - but she hadn't had a chance to talk with her colleagues about how to fill them in.

name and status

this was something else i noticed about being in hospital this time, but i need to explain a couple of things first.

firstly my first name is elizabeth - though i have always been known by my second name of sarah (mum didn't want me to be teased about my name at school, my initials would have been spelt SEW). from talking to others, i know that i am not the only person called by their second name, in fact it is quite common, it just seems to cause confusion.

secondly that i had a very unusual surname - in fact if you come across someone else with the same surname - we're most likely related. for many years i hated my surname being unusual and that no-one knew how to spell or pronounce it, and began to look forward to changing it to something easier. however somewhere in my late twenties i actually began to enjoy having an unusual name (i did once look something up on the internet about the geography of surnames and how they had spread across england over the 20th century, only to be told that they couldn't do my surname as there were under 100 entries on the census).

nine months ago matthew and i got married and suddenly i realised that i was going to have to give up my name, so i compromised and have retained my maiden name as an additional forename and still use it for work - mainly as i have worked around the country and youth work people know me with my maiden name.

so that is the background to my name.

not using my first name is interesting, most people know me as sarah and it is only really the medical/ dental and other official people who ever use elizabeth, so i do answer to it on occasion (but not if they try to be friendly and call me liz - who is she?). previously in hospitals people have referred to me as elizabeth - the doctors, nurses, radiologists whoever. however this time i was very definitely Mrs Hodge, which i found quite strange. probably as after only 9 months of marriage i'm still getting used to it myself, but also the change from first name to married surname. maybe there is some hospital policy? it did take some getting used to and really didn't feel like it was me, though i did tell everyone that i was sarah - some learnt it, others didn't and to one or two i was merely 'the lady in sideroom 2'!

when i was first hospitalised with lupus, many of my student friends came to visit and kept asking for sarah and after some confusion found me (it was a time when a lot of people learnt that i was using my second name). a year later when i went in again for a few days, they very proudly remembered that i was in fact elizabeth - but by then i'd trained the medical people and they all knew me as sarah, so more confusion ensued.

this time there was some confusion, especially for work colleagues who had to think hard about my married surname, let alone what my first name was. but i think everyone found me in the end. so if i did confuse you - i'm sorry, i don't mean to be difficult.

home

i'm now home!

it was a frustrating afternoon waiting for my medication to arrive from pharmacy - the hospital has a discharge lounge - which is basically a ward with chairs around the edge, very soulless. people are wheeled in and then either picked up by friends and relations or transferred to other hospitals/ homes.

in a way it was a bit of a shame that my stay finished there - as up until that point i had nothing but praise for the care i have received.

anyway, i slept the sleep of the dead last night, 11 hours, and it was lovely to have a leisurely breakfast this morning, with the wonderful matthew.

the picture is some balloons that my sister sent me, a novel take on flowers.

thank you to everyone who has kindly sent cards, best wishes etc. they do make a difference.

release?

it looks as if thus could be my last posting from sideroom 2.
i am ready to go, just waiting for some drugs from pharmacy. i've packed am just waiting for the ok.
i may have to move from sideroom 2 to the discharge lounge, where ever that might be, so i thought i'd say goodbye from here, while i still can.
the blog has really helped me and thank you for reading and commenting, either here or on facebook you have encouraged me.
i still have someway to go before i'll be fighting fit again, so this may yet be renamed 'life from no 39' or similar, but for now i'm just glad to be going home and am looking forward to spending the weekend with matthew.
thank you.

extreme bonjela testing

in order to keep myself amused this morning i have decided to undertake some extreme bonjela testing. this has come about for two reasons.
firstly, as previously mentioned a crop of ulcers and a fungal infection have taken up residence in my mouth over the last week. yesterday i was given a bottle of liquid antibiotic and a tube of bonjela, these, along with an illegally smuggled steroid mouthwash, have begun to make some impact on my unwelcome visitors.
secondly, when i bought the paper yesterday i made a rash impulse buy of a packet of walkers sensations sweet thai chilli crisps (a fave of mine). it is hard to believe but it is obviously possible to impulse buy in hospital. anyway once back in sideroom 2 i realised that that might not have been the wisest way to spend 99p. crisps, chilli flavouring, mouth ulcers... so the packet remains unopened.
thirdly, yesterday was chocolate day, ie some of my visitors had bought me some chocolate. matthew and i had some in the evening whilst playing cards and i realised that mouth ulcers don't like extreme sweet either.

so in a minute i will be liberal with the bonjela and once it has had time to work, try eating either the crisps or the chocolate. i will off course update you with the results later.

on a more positive note i understand there is now a bed shortage and the 14yr old can see no reason to keep me here, we just need a more mature doctor to sign the form. the only possible fly in the ointment is that i will need some antibiotics to go home with, if it is only for a couple of days there is enough on the ward. if i need them for longer they will have to be ordered from pharmacy... and because of the bank holidays this weekend i will need to get them from here.

major crisis

there is currently a major crisis on roskear ward...
they have run out of male urine bottles and there have been frantic calls around the hospital to try and locate some. fortunately this crisis will not personally affect me!!
on my first night on this ward i could hear one of the nurses asking the men in the next bay how many bottles would they need for the night, one or two? it took me a couple of minutes to work out exactly what bottles she meant.

things i am most looking forward to about going home

matthew
my own bed
watching tv without paying 3.50 a day for it
making phone calls without paying 10p a minute
people ringing me without paying 50p a minute
being responsible for my own medication again
no longer being pricked for blood tests/ blood sugar/ canula's etc
reading 'the girl who kicked the hornet's nest', out today in paperback
a quieter life - not so many bleeps/ buzzers/ phones etc
a nice freshly brewed cup of tea

good morning- day 7

greetings from sideroom 2, it's coming up to 8am and i'm awaiting breakfast in bed. unfortunately i didn't sleep too well last night, my brain couldn't shut off and because the height of my exercise routine is a walk to the front entrance and back (and please bear in mind that roskear is the 2nd closest ward to the entrance) my body wasn't particularly tired either.
anyway i am hoping that today is to be release day - so far my 'obs' are fine which is good news.
once i've breakfasted and dressed, i shall wander down to the shop and get a paper and then the waiting game will begin. i don't want to tempt fate by packing, but then again it shouldn't take too long to pack and in the meantime i've thought of a couple of things to keep myself amused whilst waiting.
so here's hoping that everything can be sorted and i can be ready to leave by lunchtime (as this best suits matthew's diary for the day).

goodnight

overall today has finished off better than it started, possibly going home tomorrow and some lovely visitors today. i've had a shower and am now in bed.
however i'll be signing off tonight on a slightly more serious note.

as i have said before roskear ward is a cardio ward and tonight one of the male patients arrested. it was all handled very well and with very little fuss. it was just after visiting so the remaining visitors were asked to leave and the crash team arrived with very little fanfare. you heard the defib warm up, someone said 'clear' and you heard the shock. it was successful but arrangements were then made to take him to coronary care (to do this a swap of patients was made). from the discussions and telephone conversations it appears that he had come in for a pacemaker and had, up until then been doing quite well.
only once have i been on a ward where someone has died, it was a young mother who had taken an overdose and again it was all handled very discreetly.

today we are removed from death, it is no longer something that happens in the home. however we still think of hospitals as places where people go to get better and the vast majority probably do, but as tonight has shown there are near misses and failures. even today my consultant reminded me that when i arrived on friday i was in a life-threatening situation.
so although i'm making the best of a bad situation and trying to find humour in my circumstances and the people who surround me here, i also respect them for the roles that they perform and the treatment and care that they have shown me.
thank you

rare sighting of 'lesser spotted consultant'

i am happy to report that this elusive creature has finally been seen in sideroom 2! it was around 4.15 this afternoon and in his honour both the door and curtain were used.
it was a generally positive meeting and offers the very strong possibility that i could be home tomorrow!!!! i am to reduce my current steroid dose over 6 weeks and see him in outpatients in a couple of weeks. in the meantime the 14 year old dr has taken a blood sample that will be sent to Bristol, hopefully get the results in 2-3 weeks and somehow this will determine what future medication i can go on.
i notice that no-one has volunteered a time slot for this sighting in my latest sweep-stake, obviously the prize of a hospital meal was not a big enough incentive...
the next sweepstake could be either the time i leave or when the canula will be removed (it isn't currently needed, but is being kept in 'just in case'), though there is always the possibility that both will happen more or less simultaneously.

bowel movements

i have been threatening this post since i came to sideroom 2, and now here it is, with a warning that you really need to read the two previous posts about privacy + modesty first.
for some reason there is a fascination around your bodily discharges and when i arrived here i was dehydrated, but a saline drip soon sorted that. i have been spared the indignity of a 24hr fluid balance (ie measuring what goes in and what comes out), however there is also a concern about not being constipated, and even though they have different ways of asking, i get asked every day if i've 'been'.
i don't know about you but when i go somewhere new, it takes my body a day or two to feel comfortable and in addition when i arrived here i hadn't eaten much in the previous 2 days, was confined to bed and aware of the limitations of the curtain ie you could be heard and not seen.
initially it was a case of using the bedpan. for a woman this means raising oneself enough to allow a nurse to place a moulded cardboard tray, in a plastic tray underneath you. you then gently lower yourself onto the pan, convinced you will fall off or break it, and then try and relax your muscles. you then have to lift yourself up again in order for the pan to removed, all the time convinced that you will slip and the contents of the pan will spill over the bed.
next stage is the commode! this is wheeled down the ward to your bedside, the curtains swished and on you get. now you are sitting, in your backless gown, very aware of the limitations of the curtain and again you have to will your muscles to relax.
now i am happily installed in sideroom 2, with it's ensuite wc, all i will say is that things are a lot more relaxed!

amazing who you meet

was sitting in my chair, thinking about matthew, when one of the cleaning staff came in to change my bin bag. he was singing 'all glory laud and honour', so i made a comment about that being last week. i must have shocked him as he took a minute or two to think about what i had said, before asking me if i went to church. he then told me that he goes to the cathedral, even though he was baptised a methodist, and then i more or less got his life story. i've always admired those who can sit and listen to anyone, having time on your hands helps, maybe i'm just too busy. anyway, thank you howard for talking to me and i hope you continue to enjoy your bell ringing, and that you have a great holiday in vienna.

sudoku - update

having taken so long on the sudoku, i am pleased to report that the codewords was a much quicker affair. once i'd cracked 'coleslaw' i was away. i was going to time it, but it would have looked woeful as it was interrupted by an x-ray and lunch.
it will be a few days yet until i attempt the crossword.

so far i've had visits from the in-laws and karen, thank you for taking the time to make this afternoon interesting.

tomorrow's menu

just had my lunch of chicken and bacon lasagne - interesting idea, not sure i'll replicate it at home.

tomorrow's choices
lunch
lamb in cider with dumplings, carrots mash
bakewell tart + custard
evening
orange juice
egg mayonnaise salad
ice-cream


whilst it is easy to mock hospital food, things have moved on. gone are the days when your food was plated up in the kitchens that were strategically placed about as far away from the ward as you can get. the trays would then be put in trolleys that managed to both cool the hot food and warm the cold food, at the same time. meaning that by the time your food reached your bedside, it might of been edible but you just didn't want it.
here we make our order from a selection of dishes, some of which have been created by celebrity chefs (though we are not told which ones). the orders are then collated and the whole wards order is sent down (not too sure how that bit works, but i did hear the healthcare workers total the number of portions for each item)
then around midday or 5pm a mini serving counter is brought onto the ward. on roskear all available members of staff queue up with trays and a couple of people then plate/ tray up your food and bring it to your bedside! therefore the hot food is hotter than i used to remember and the cool food is cold, though if it's ice-cream i would still recommend that you have that as a starter.

i had my chest x-ray this morning and saw the trolley of food for this ward come off the lift as i got on! also getting out of the lift were andrew, helen, isaac and joseph - which will only mean anything if you know them - but they had just been for an appointment. we managed a quick chat before i was wheeled off to x-ray.

it is now nearly visiting hour, so let's see who comes today...

sudoku

ok, maybe i'm not well, it's taken me far too long to complete a moderate sudoku.

important update

i've seen a consultant!!!!
unfortunately it is the cardio one on whose ward i'm technically squatting (rheumatology never seem to have their own ward, their own outpatients dept but no ward). he apologised for the non appearance of dr davies, and has decreed that i no longer need a drip - i can go onto oral antibiotics. he also is prescribing me a mouthwash to sort out the ulcers and thrush that have taken up residence in my mouth over the last few days (a side affect of the levels of medicine that i've been on).
he then popped his head back in to tell me that i will go for a chest x-ray and see how my lungs are looking now, a sensible decision that agree with not only because it makes sense, but also it will also give me something else to look forward to today. he's nice man, if i ever need a heart doctor - he's my man.

i went to the shop to get a paper, no one seemed to mind or to notice. unfortunately the largest easter eggs stocked by the shop are creme eggs, matthew may not be getting an egg this year...

and hot off the press, as i type a man has come to look at my bedside light that hasn't work since i arrived in sideroom 2. he changed the bulb and it now works on dim, but i'll need a new switch in order to work it from the bed. he'll report it!!!!

good morning - day 6

morning from sideroom 2. it is wednesday 31st march, and the start of my 6th day in here...
am in a bit of pain this morning, maybe my painkiller free day yesterday was a bad idea, though i expect it will be like this for a while until i get onto a stable dose of medicine.
apparently the weather has turned and the day staff have all come in saying how cold it is outside, according to the bbc website there are blizzards 'upcountry' and for the first time ever during a hospital stay i was cold in the night.
it was a bit hard to get up this morning. had another drip at 6.30 and then breakfast in bed, which left me puzzling where i am, not a hotel, i'm not working but then again i can't really go anywhere and all there is to look forward to is a similar day to yesterday...

with regard to the canula sweepstake that started last night- it was done at 8.45, so my drip was through by 10!! it was put in by the junior dr who hangs around this ward who, to give him his due, has been keeping my spirits up. matthew and i refer to him as the14 year old! he could be a major heart surgeon of the future but for now he got a good size canula in first time, so i'm happy. charlotte - his beard is halfway between bumfluff and mature.
i've decided to start another sweepstake - this one on when the 'lesser spotted consultant' will arrive. the prize will be hospital meal, we will go for half hour time slots. please leave your bids in the comments.

claire it looks as if i'm still here, so would love to see you before/ after richard lander. any other visitors will be most welcome

goodnight

feeling a bit low tonight, might have something to do with just saying goodbye to matthew.
the night shift is starting, i was due another drip this eve but the canula is b******d, so the call has gone out for tonight's on-call 12 year old (sorry dr) to come + put in another one. maybe i'll start a sweepstake on his arrival time (it is a bloke, he was described as the one with beard).
unfortunately the rare 'lesser spotted consultant' did not put in an appearance today, nor did any of his team, so still no news about release dates.
otherwise i'll keep taking the medicine and hope for a good night's sleep tonight.

tomorrows menu

had a little snooze and woke up to see the menu on the bed...
so lunch
chicken + bacon lasagne, green beans and baby pots
cheese + biscuits
evening
orange juice
turkey + tom sandwich
ice-cream (it is cornish - callestick farm)

lunch today, lamb and veg pie not too bad and i made banana custard with my bowl of custard and banana.

othderwise i can report that the sun does make it into sideroom 2 and i saw the air ambulance fly off having dropped someone off at a+e
no visitors this pm so far -though robin one of the chaplains popped in this am (also a friend of my father-in-law).
alas no visit from consultant either

privacy and modesty - the curtain

one way of maintaining a degree of p+m (see previous) in hospital is 'the curtain'. these surround every bed and with a flick of the wrist the curtain is swished around and tada it's your own private room!
but it isn't.
although all consultations, dressing changes or treatments can be carried on behind the curtain, the reality is that although not seen it can be heard. one eg from hdu was the removal of a male patients dressing from his backside, we heard it all even the nurse saying that he had had a waxing, all this whilst i was trying to eat a sandwich.

the allusion of privacy, when really there isn't any reminds me of camping with teenagers, who just don't get how thin canvass is but seem to think of a tent as a soundproof room. but here is a tip if you find yourself on night duty and have to get them to be quiet. pleading that you would like to go to sleep just won't work. neither will telling them they are keeping the site/ nearby village/ the whole of dartmouth awake.
instead stand outside the tent, listen to the conversation and at an appropriate point join in by offering your opinion/ thought on the discussion in hand. there will be immediate quiet, followed by a 'how much to you think she heard?'. a short conversation may ensue, but they will then go to sleep, well perhaps not - but they will be quiet, especially if they realise you've been listening for a while.
unfortunately it will only work a couple of times before they start to try to deliberately draw you into the conversation. then you will have to resort to telling them that they can be heard in dartmouth!