Out of Focus - the diary of a student radiographer.

The results are in...

2008-02-12T17:28:00.000Z

... and the university have foolishly awarded me a 2:1!

It took me 16 years to get around to doing it but I finally have a degree to my name. Now all I have to do is find a job but, in total contrast to when I started the course, radiography jobs are rather thin on the ground right now.

Time for the (almost) annual update

2007-12-15T17:09:00.000Z

Time marches on, and I'm almost at the end of my degree. I'm currently feeling stupidly happy after completing my last essay (woo! yay!) and I've finished all my placement assessments and audits. Only 2 more exams and 4 weeks of placement to complete now - it should have been 3 weeks by this point but I missed a week due to contracting a (sort of) nosocomial infection a month ago.

So by the time the SimonG meet comes around I will be free from the tortures of studying and wondering what to so with myself!

Arse

2007-06-30T22:23:00.000+01:00

(This is a fleeting visit to express my frustration at my useless self - normal silence will be resumed as soon as possible).

I hate that feeling that I get every few years that I'm doing the wrong job and something else would be so much more my sort of thing. Well, I've got it again and I haven't even started being a radiographer. Arse. I'm so fickle. Maybe it's the stress of upcoming exams and essay deadlines and I'll get over it in due course. Maybe.

The thing that did it was the placement I had on Friday observing on an ambulance. Now I want to be a paramedic. The novelty of this situation is that I've been here before. Back in 2001 I applied to be an ambulance technician and passed all the assessments except the fitness test. I was even offered a training place subject to passing the fitness test. I trained hard but my heart rate let me down. My resting heart rate was fine - even now with my far more sedentary lifestyle and increased weight it's about 70 which is average. But they measure your heart rate whilst going up and down steps whilst carrying 30kg and if it goes above 90% of your theoretical maximum, that's it. Fail. It didn't matter that I could physically complete the test without collapsing and the gym lady said my heart rate returned to normal really quickly which was the criteria *they* used to measure fitness.

For some reason my heart has always had a tendancy to run fast when exercising. At the gym, the exercise machines had heart monitors in and they were constantly telling me to slow down so my heart rate would come down a bit. Thing is, if I obeyed the gym machine I didn't feel like I was getting any real exercise. I guess I'm just weird.

Anyway, I kept trying. Then in 2002 I came down with a bad back and decided it was probably a good thing I hadn't got a job as an ambulance tech. My back is more or less fine now, but with the occasional twinge to remind me to look after it. So I got over wanting to be a paramedic.

So, despite my history of a dodgy back, my past failures at the fitness test, the fact that I haven't been near a gym in years, I weigh more now, I have trained 2 and a half years to be a radiographer, and there aren't any unis near me that run paramedic courses (techs are being phased out) - despite all this I now want to be a paramedic again.

Bah. My head is *so * messed up. Anyone know where I can get a fully functioning one from?

A small update

2007-02-23T18:59:00.000Z

Just a little update to reassure anyone who cares, or anyone who happened to notice my blog was updated for the first time in over a year, that I haven't died - I've just been beavering away at this here university thing.

Not much has changed - Adam is fine, the cats are fine, my back is fine. We're still geocaching. And I've just got my 2nd year results! Average of 62% - that's the highest mark of the cohort.

Nothing more to see, move along now...

And now, the end is near...

2006-02-14T13:21:00.000Z

Phew! That's it - all over for my first year at uni (although I officially don't finish the first year until Friday). All my essays and the portfolio are in, yesterday I had an exam and today I had a 10 minute presentation "The role of digital imaging in imaging the lumbar spine" to give. I was up third which wasn't too bad - I then had to sit through six more presentations, luckily not all on the same topic.

To amuse myself whilst the rest of the presentations were going on, I got Tom Baker to talk to Adam, which apparently made him jump (Adam, not Tom Baker).

I'm off now to pack my case as we're off to Dorsetland for the rest of the week - yay!

PACS of fun

2006-02-11T13:54:00.000Z

The radiology dept is having a fun time at the moment. We are having a new computer system called PACS installed which means eventually we will stop printing x-ray images into film. We area already taking digital images (known as computed radiography or CR) but PACS enables the images to be stored and viewed on terminals with special high-resolution monitors all over the hospital, and in time, other hospital and GPs surgeries.

Like all new IT systems, this one is suffering from its fair share of teething troubles. The PACS system is having to cope with input from lots of different equipment from different manufacturers. Random images from one of the fluoroscopy rooms have been disappearing into the ether, never to be seen again. The superintendent (radiographer in charge) has been ranting about how useless PACS is to any person who will listen, and several who won't.

Don't you just love technology? I'm just glad my current placement is finished and hopefully they will hit it with a big stick and get it sorted before I go back in two weeks time.

A footnote: when I found the NHS website about PACS that I linked to above, I took a look at the page about the benefits of PACS to radiographers. The list consists of benefits of a CR system, not PACS, which (as the name says) is purely an archiving and communication system. The only benefit of PACS to radiographers is not having to print films. Granted, many hospitals are getting CR and PACS at the same time, but I wish the people who write these things would check their facts with the people who know.

Crash

2006-02-09T20:37:00.000Z

I witnessed my second ever crash call yesterday. I had seen one in the first few months of my HCA job, this was the first since I became a student.

An elderly gentleman was getting up off the table after a barium enema and passed out. The call was made and within minutes about 20 doctors appeared from various directions. When something like this happens, you learn very quickly where various emergency supplies are kept in the department.

It's a pity I had to leave while it was still going on as I had to catch the intersite bus for a meeting with my mentor. By the time I left the docs were giving him IV fluids and monitoring his blood pressure and everyone seemed a lot calmer so I guess they got him stablised. The first thing I did when I got in this morning was ask after him - he was sent down to A&E and apparently was suffering from vasovagal syncope, nothing serious fortunately.

It would all be so much better if it wasn't for the patients and the doctors...

2006-02-01T17:00:00.000Z

This week has been an odd one so far.

1. I came face-to-face with an elderly gentleman in the changing cubicles who had put his hospital gown on the wrong way round, it was gaping open and he had no underwear on. Oh, my eyes.

2. An SHO came into the department requesting a portable barium swallow. OK, only a radiographer would understand that.

3. In the endoscopy theatre, a sedated patient spent most of the procedure letting out botty burps of amazing loudness and duration. And everyone in the theatre but me kept a straight face.

Dreaming Spires

2006-01-29T23:36:00.000Z

Just time for a quick blog about our fabby weekend in Oxford. We met a great bunch of thingers in Oxford - lovely to see you all, especially the people we hadn't met before: el10t, elo15e, Sam, Maddy, Henry, Trouty, Carol, Jenny, Sparkle, Jess, Bean, Hutters and Mel. I hope I haven't left anyone out - sincere apologies if I did!

After 6 hours in the bar, we decided to get some fresh air and grabbed a few caches - then the next morning we grabbed a few more caches. And to round a great weekend off, we got home to find I had got my first essay of this term back - I got 65%!

Is anyone clever reading this?

2006-01-23T22:12:00.000Z

If so, I need help with solving the puzzle in this geocache UC17 (Words). I have had the following extra help from the cache owner:

You are looking for 16 references that appear in chronological order in the text.
The first is in the first line, the last is in the last line.
A majority are single figures but not all.
No further mathematics are required.
There are also two phrases and a phrase transformation (the difficult 7th slot) to find.
You need to put it together in this format.

X XX XXXXXX (Northings)
X XXX XXXXXX (Westings)

You will notice that there are 19 X's there so you need a minor bit of conjuring there.

So with the help of google I found plenty of numbers 'hidden' in the text - trouble is, I have no idea what to do next!

Last chance to see?

2006-01-22T11:07:00.000Z

Today is a momentous day in the life of my slimgraph (it's over there, on the right -->).

Not only is today the first time my scales have told me I weigh under 13 stone (although I am sure they are lying to me - I weighed more on Sarah's scales), but I have also reached the half-way-there line on the graph! I have lost 13 pounds in 7 months and my goal was to lose 2 stone in a year, so I'm not doing too badly. Family and friends are even starting to comment that I look slimmer.

So everyone better be there at the thingers meet next weekend - it might be your last chance to see me before I get so thin that I disappear for ever! *grins*

Hot water

2006-01-12T23:00:00.000Z

You know what it's like in a canteen. The woman at the front of the queue pays for her food then, whilst she puts her purse away, the cashier rings up your food on the till. So you reach towards the cashier with your coins, across the other woman's tray, and then...

... if you are me, you drop a pound coin in her cup of hot chocolate.

Oops.

Today ends better than it started

2005-12-13T22:32:00.000Z

Good news - Tasha is using the litter tray less now she's had the anti-inflammatory injection at the vet's and I just checked my uni e-mail and they've found my pen drive! Whew!

Aaagh, it's the thirteenth!

2005-12-13T14:20:00.000Z

I'm really surprised its not Friday the 13th as everything seems to be going wrong today. OK, nothing that's happened is particularly bad in the scheme of things, but it's enough to get me feeling *very* tense.

Today is a study day and I had every intention of devoting the whole day to studying. So far, I have managed to do very little, so it's lucky I'm ahead of schedule for completing my essays.

Firstly, one of our cats, the very large, fluffy and gorgeous Tasha, has been in and out of the litter tray approximately once every half an hour today, trying to wee. She's had this problem before and it was cystitis then, so I'm not unduly worried but it does mean I have to take her to the vet later and meantime, I'm sweeping up litter from the floor approximately once every half an hour.

I also discovered my pen drive that I use to write my essays on has disappeared and I suspect I left it in the back of the computer I was using at the uni library yesterday. I phoned the library and it hasn't been found. Again, not a major disaster as I backed everything up to the uni's server yesterday but it means I don't have access to the lastest version of my essays until I go back there. But I'm also worried about it being nicked and someone having access to all my work, which makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason.

And, just to be a pain, our other cat Dizzy nearly knocked over our water mister thingy whilst she was trying to drink out of it, so I had a load of water to mop up whilst trying to resist throttling Dizzy.

'Scuse me, I have more cat litter to go and sweep up...

Coff, coff

2005-12-11T21:58:00.000Z

Oh dear, another long blogging gap. Well, you'll have to blame my uni who, most inconsiderately, have given me all sorts of essays to write. Have I mentioned I hate writing essays?

Anyway, I feel so sorry for anyone living closer to Hemel Hempstead than we are, which is about 50 miles away. Adam & I just drove home from my parents' house (only 20 minutes drive away) with the windows closed as outside is a bit parky and smells like a bonfire, and we both now have swimmy heads and feel a bit sick due to the smoke in the air.

Yawwwwn

2005-11-07T22:01:00.000Z

Ooh, I have had a busy couple of days. On Saturday Adam & I went to my drama group's firework and barbeque party and we stayed far too late into the morning. That meant we got up later than we planned on Sunday for our caching trip in the New Forest area and only got one cache done before lunch. Lunch, of course, was at Lois' pub and we had a excellent Sunday roast. I'm not just saying that, it really was excellent - with proper crunchy roast potatoes, not those horrible ones with leathery skins you get at a lot of places.

After lunch and a gossip with Lois, we squeezed in two more caches before it got dark. Sorry we didn't manage any of your caching recommendations Paul - but our choice of lunch venue meant that they were too far away. Then off to Bournemouth to drop Adam off (we managed a quick urban cache on the way, plus we found the clues for another) and I finally got home at 11pm - no wonder I was yawning all day today. Early night tonight methinks.

Help needed from southern geocachers

2005-11-03T00:00:00.000Z

Adam (much to his disgust) is on a course next week in Bournemouth. Rather than letting him leave mid afternoon on Sunday and spending zillions of hours on several trains getting there, I am going to drive him there Sunday morning and we can spend the day caching together somewhere in the area.

So I need some help from those of those of you who live in that general area - can you recommend to us a good caching area that is somewhere between Bournemouth and, say, Winchester? Any 'must do' caches?

Wooooooo!

2005-10-30T14:41:00.000Z

Adam and I pootled up the M1 yesterday in order to have a fabby time at the Halloween Cache Bash. You can read accounts of the evening here - written by people far more eloqant than I. We didn't take our camera but luckily plenty of others did - clicky for piccies of mine and Adam's costumes. Looking forward to next year's already!

Some ways to be an ostrich

2005-10-21T18:53:00.000+01:00

Gosh, has it really been that long since I last did a proper blog entry? Oh well, I'm here now.

I'm on placement again, trying to complete 20 unaided x-rays and 6 assessed x-rays, and trying not to worry about the 6 essays, with a combined word count of 9500, that I have to hand in just after the new year.

The sys admin at the hospital is such an ostrich. He thinks he knows more than anyone else about computers and thinks he know more about radiography than he does. He announced today, in a loud voice so everyone could hear, that he doesn't use broadband because you get more viruses than using dial-up. Good job I wasn't drinking anything at the time.

He also thinks he is more important than he really is. He told us that he has been given express permission to report back to the placement supervisor if he sees us sitting down when we should be w**king. His preferred method of preventing us sitting down seems to be by occupying the chairs as much as possible himself.

Lisa needs...

2005-10-13T16:45:00.000+01:00

From Miss Sixty's blog: Go to Google and type in “(your name) needs”. Choose 5 (or more) “needs” at random.

The first 5 I got were:

Lisa needs a tree.
Lisa needs braces.
Lisa needs a bigger grin and lots more warmth from an overly conscientious Julia Roberts.
Lisa needs to handler (sic) lower conditions.
LISA needs to more clearly communicate to clients how they can benefit from LISA membership.

I don't think I need any of those.

Vroom, vroom!

2005-09-25T22:33:00.000+01:00

Adam and I had a jolly spiffing time today watching the British A1 GP today. It was so much better than the British F1 GP in so many ways. More interesting racing, much cheaper and even better, Brands Hatch is only half an hour's drive away!

The A1 event consisted of two races. The first was a short sprint race (rolling start, no compulsory pit stop) which wasn't terribly interesting as the drivers seemed to be taking things a bit too cautiously - there wasn't much overtaking and not many trips off the track. The British car came fifth.

The second race was tons better, it was longer, with a standing start and a compulsory pit stop. Plenty of overtaking and visits to the gravel traps, including one car that flipped over right in front of us after a 'coming together' with another car. Both drivers were fine, though. The British car was third for a good part of the race, behind the Brazilian and Australian cars until all three came in for their pit stops under the safety car. Cheers all round when the British car came out of the pits first! Until a minute later, when the British car broke down at the end of the very same lap. A small trickle of people got up an left at that point, miserable sods. Still, the British driver was unlikely to have kept the lead as the Brazilian left the rest of the field miles behind. Maybe him being the son of Nelson Piquet had something to do with it.

It's a shame the races are only being televised on Sky Sports. We are sort of tempted to upgrade so we can see it but Sky have a reputation for changing the channel they show a particular sport on, to try and force people to sign up for all the sports channels. Still, we found out at Sky's stand at Brands Hatch that it's now possible to only take a third of the 'entertainment' channels and save some money - they kept that one quiet, unsurprisingly.

I hope the A1 series takes off - we'll be back again next year if it does. Even if it did take half an hour to get out of the car park.

Under Construction

2005-09-21T17:21:00.000+01:00

It's an interesting experience studying at a campus that is still under construction. You see, 3 universities and a college got together to share a new campus and, whereas a lot of it is finished, there is a fair bit that still is the domain of construction workers. For most of last term they were making a nuisance of themselves (diggers getting in the way of traffic, builders sending cement dust flying everywhere, that sort of thing) just over the road constructing the new library.

Well, it opened this week and it is huge. The longest library in Europe, apparently. Masses of PCs and study space - much better than the pokey computer room we have in our building. Good incentive to study there away from the distractions at home (internet forums, telly, cats etc.). Also there are masses more books than in the old library. They even have some radiography books! Only about 10, but it's a start, and it's 10 more than the old library had. Hurrah, less intersite loans to have to deal with.

We now also have a barrier at the entrance of the far-too-small car park. The card reader for it is cunningly placed to cause maximum inconvenience - I can only just get the car close enough to lean out of the window to swipe the pass card.

A lot of the building type stuff that is going on I don't have a clue about. This time last year they planted up the strip of ground between the car park and the road with lots of shrubs and suchlike. Today there are a couple of diggers clearing it all away. I wonder what that's all about.

And the rest of the results are in....

2005-09-21T17:14:00.000+01:00

For my exam I got 68% (wahey) and for the two short essays in my placement portfolio I got 55% (yay) and 40% (oops). The main reason I got a low mark for the last one was because I didn't use any references. It was an essay about how the different professions communicated within my hospital and I didn't realise I needed references.

Oh well, learning outcome of the day - use references in everything.

Oh, and I took the rest of the ECDL tests today and passed them all (yay again).

The second result is in...

2005-09-15T15:49:00.000+01:00

... and I got 70% for my other essay! Yay, go me!

One big difference I noticed between school and university is that people ask other people what mark they got and the answer is willingly given. No one ever admitted to what marks they got when I was at school.

Of the other radiography students I asked, no one got a higher mark than me, and one got the same. Oh dear, I'm beginning to feel like the class swot.

Back to the grindstone

2005-09-13T19:52:00.000+01:00

First day of term yesterday - no time off until Xmas! One of our first lectures was on the reproductive system which, of course, caused much mirth all round - even from the supposedly mature students. Actually, that should be especially from the mature students. I'm not including myself in that. Oh no. *ahem*

In the afternoon, our physics lecturer pleased a large number of the class by having the cricket scores updating on the toolbar of the computer he was projecting the lecture slides from (it was something from the BBC website - some sort of anti-boss thing, I suppose).

On a only slightly-related note, I got a letter from Natwest today about my money, basically telling me I had applied for the account too late to get the £55. Nice of them to tell me at the time - not. I sent them a snotty letter straight away. Don't suppose it will make any difference but it made me feel better. Not surprisingly I'm closing the account.

A country walk without geocaching

2005-09-10T23:34:00.000+01:00

I saw my personal tutor yesterday and 40% is a pass, 65% is a first so 55% is good - yay! Still no news of the other results though. Humpf.

Whilst tidying up (which is amazing in itself) I found a booklet of circular walks in the local area that was published in 1978, with hand drawn maps. Some of the walks near the town centre wouldn't be so interesting nowadays due to the amount of house building that has gone on since 1978, but we thought we'd give one of the more countryfied ones a go to see if it still possible to make it around the route without needing an up to date map.

It seemed kind of weird going out for a walk in the countryside without a plastic box to look for, but there was a trig point near our route, so that was OK. Well, the result was - it is still possible to use the booklet (although we did have an OS map, just in case) and we saw some nice countryside we hadn't been to before. We even found ourselves walking through a field of asparagus!

Our diversion to find the trigpoint was fun. It was on a golf course but a public footpath runs right past the pillar. We found the way onto the golf course OK as there was a footpath sign at the roadside, but we had to push our way through some vegetation to get onto the course. The footpath route wasn't signposted at all so we weaved our way around the greens, half expecting someone to shout at us for being on private property. Having found the trig, we then attempted to find our way out at the other end of the footpath. This was even worse as our way was blocked by a thicket of brambles and prickly bushed. I said we should go back to the road through the golf course's front gate - it wasn't much of a diversion - but Adam insisted on cutting his way through the brambles with a pair of nail scissors *rolls eyes*. I'm sure the golf course owners are being a bit naughty by letting the footpath get so overgrown, maybe an e-mail to the county council's public rights of way department is in order.

To finish, I'll leave you with the road sign of the week:

The first result is in...

2005-09-05T11:50:00.000+01:00

... and I got 55%. I'm not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed. Adam assures me that 55% is a perfectly respectable mark for a first essay but I, not being used to the university way of marking things, can't help feeling 55% is only about halfway there.

Oooh, exciting!

2005-09-02T15:37:00.000+01:00

According to Blackboard (the university's computer system for making announcements, storing lecture notes - that kind of thing) the results for essay #2 are being posted out today. Even better, results for the people that failed went out on Tuesday - so it looks pretty certain I passed it! Now I just have to wait for news about essay #1, the exam and my portfolio.

Is this £55 worth the effort?

2005-08-31T18:04:00.000+01:00

Natwest owe me it. Last year they were offering incentives for signing up for a student account - a young person's railcard, or £55. At the time, you had to be under 27 to use a young person's railcard so I was way off being eligible. The rules have changed now and I would be eligible, but I hardly ever use the train so I wouldn't want one anyway. I don't actually need a student account but I'm not one to turn down free money.

I opened the account in November and made the first payment in February when I started the course, as I had read somewhere on a piece of paper that I can no longer find, that something like £500 had to be paid in before they would cough up. Studying then filled my brain leaving little room for anything else and when the holidays came around I realised my £55 had never been paid.

I phoned the branch and explained. They told me to phone the people who dealt with student accounts. I phoned the people who dealt with student accounts and they told me to phone my branch. You can see where this is going, can't you. I rang the branch number and was told I was speaking to 'branch support' (aka a call centre, presumably) and they would get someone from my branch to call me. Surprise, surprise - I never got called back. Now my 'holiday' is over I called the branch again and, miracles will never cease, I actually spoke to someone in the branch! However, he told me I would need to write to the branch manager so he/she could sort it out as it's been a long time and the branch people can't remember if they were offering money at the time or not.

I can't decide if I'm being tight and should let it drop or if I should pursue it because it's mine by rights. On the one hand £55 isn't that much, it's only the cost of getting my car trim sorted out. On the other hand, £55 is a lot of money, I could get a couple of text books for that. Or alternatively, just think of all the Lush I could buy for £55! Stupidly, I feel a bit guilty as I'm not really using the account, i.e. I'm not running up huge overdrafts on it.

However there is another £69 which is definitely worth chasing - the NHS student grants people have underpaid me my travel expenses. Why is nothing ever easy?

Last day of the holiday

2005-08-29T21:54:00.000+01:00

Well for Adam anyway, I still have two weeks off but I will be going back to tackling the to do list tomorrow. We decided to head for the East Kent countryside in a bid to avoid the bank holiday crowds and we succeeded. We visited a woodland with a sculpture trail:

and Chilham, near Canterbury, while has some very tasty houses:

A rather belated blog for Friday.

2005-08-28T11:10:00.000+01:00

We went to London, to do caching and to see Guys and Dolls.

I have been to London hundreds of times (I used to work there) but I still find bits I haven't seen before. This time it was St Katherine's Dock. We hadn't taken the camera but I wished we had, as this area is rather pretty and doesn't look like central London at all. Never mind, the link I just gave you has plenty of piccies. We also spent a lot of time looking at a very interesting exhibition outside the city hall.

I really enjoyed Guys and Dolls - even Adam enjoyed it and musicals aren't his thing. I was especially keen to see this musical as I was in a production of it about 10 years ago - and I still remembered all the songs! However, we didn't get home until half past midnight, and for some reason I was tired all day yesterday too, hence the belated blog. Sorry.

Things we saw whilst out caching

2005-08-25T23:19:00.000+01:00

The beautiful town of Rye in East Sussex:

The beautiful town of Winchelsea, near Rye:

Believe it or not, this windmill was in one piece as recently as 1987:

There's tupperware at the end of the rainbow!

Road sign of the week:

Spam hell

2005-08-24T22:02:00.000+01:00

Well, the best rain-avoiding tactic we thought of for today (apart from staying home and surfing the intermaweb) was to go to the cinema. We fancied seeing War of the Worlds, unfortunately the nearest place still showing it was the cinema at Kent's greatest temple to the god of consumerism. It seems all of Kent had the same idea of where to go to avoid getting wet.

I think the experience would be improved no end if everyone:

1. Didn't dawdle
2. Walked in the same direction that their face is pointing
3. Moved out of the flow of 'traffic' if they want to stand still.

Flowers!

2005-08-23T22:10:00.000+01:00

We took advantage of a lovely sunny day in between nasty rainy days to visit Sissinghurst Gardens, where we saw lots of pretty flowers:

Shhhh, don't tell anyone, but we got in for free. Last Xmas, we bought my Mum & Dad National Trust membership, as a thankyou for feeding our cats when we had weekends away. Trouble is, at the time they were having serious problems with their computer system. I won't go into gory details but after several phone call, e-mails and even two faxes the membership was set up three months later. As a result of all that they somehow managed to send my parents three lots of membership cards, so I decided Adam and I deserved to keep one set for ourselves as compensation for all the hassle. It didn't stop both of us feeling really guilty about using them though!

Aujourd'hui il a plu. Beaucoup.

2005-08-22T21:46:00.000+01:00

Today we got up at silly o'clock (5am) to get the Eurotunnel train (to France, obviously). We pootled down the coast road to Boulogne, taking in the sunlit countryside and a couple of virtual caches. We wandered around the town in the warm sunshine before choosing a table outside a restaurant at which to have lunch. It then started to rain and continued to do so whilst we ate lunch (hastily relocated to inside of the restaurant), tried to make the most of our day in Boulogne and shopped at a hypermarket for a large amount of wine. I'm tired now and I'm going to bed, so sorry for a poor quality blog and no piccies. Hopefully I'll add some tomorrow.

EDIT: Here you go - piccies. Best we could do before it chucked down.

Durovernum Cantiacorum

2005-08-20T21:40:00.000+01:00

Every holiday needs a shopping trip! When we went to Canterbury on Tuesday, I realised it had been a very long time since I had last visited the city, and the shopping area has been completely redone, so we decided to go back there today.

The city has lots of quirky old buildings:

The cathedral gatehouse:

Unfortunately we couldn't get any closer to the cathedral than this, as they were charging £5 just to get into the cathedral precinct! Blooming cheek.

Today it rained. Lots.

2005-08-19T21:41:00.000+01:00

We decided to venture not too far from home and visited Fort Amherst. It's not very well known but it's very interesting, if you are interested in historical military stuff, with some slightly spooky tunnels and some great views over the Medway towns. We got absolutely soaked, so when we were done, we came home and I did my ironing.

Chatham, with Rochester in the distance:

Is Nelson's column missing a bit?

More trains and animals

2005-08-18T22:20:00.000+01:00

Over the border to East Sussex today, to play with a full size train set this time.

There were genuine ye olde trains:

genuine ye old stations:

with genuine ye olde adverts:

Then we went to see some cute animals.

Llamas:

and alpacas:

Proof PuzzleDonkey is really an alpaca:

Caves & Birds

2005-08-17T22:58:00.000+01:00

Today we went to Chislehurst Caves. The talk by the tour guide was interesting but there wasn't much to look at as the caves are man-made. Unfortunately a group of about 20 kids were on the tour, who were being far too noisy, and the tour guide kept moaning about them. I couldn't help thinking he was in the wrong job if he couldn't cope with groups of noisy kids. Half way through the tour he got his own back by telling them ghost stories, then jumping out on them to scare them. We laughed a lot.

In the afternoon we went to Eagle Heights which had much more to look at.

Lots of birds of prey:

Some reptiles:

Even some pygmy goats:

Crab & Winkle

2005-08-16T22:07:00.000+01:00

Last week, someone put one of the much coveted Interception travel bugs in a cache near Canterbury that is part of a series of three. The caches are on National Cycle Route 1, which runs between Canterbury and Whitstable and is close to the route of the world first passenger railway line - known as the Crab & Winkle Line. The cache setters recommend hiring biks in Canterbury in order to do the cache series on two wheels and today was the first day we had the opportunity to give it a go, as the cycle hire place is closed on Mondays. Luckily, cachers in Kent don't seem to be as on the ball as they are in some other parts of the country, so the bug was still there today for the taking. As an extra bonus there were two other caches on the route that we hadn't already found.

Now, I am possibly the worlds most incompetant cyclist - I'm not too fit, I hate going too fast and I can't be guaranteed to ride in a straight line, even when I should. And it's been well over a year since I last rode a bike. Bearing this in mind, we did quite well to get almost as far as Whitstable today, and we would have done if we didn't have to get the bikes back to Canterbury before the hire place closed. We reckon we rode 6 miles each way, which I managed without falling off or crashing into any other cyclists, and I felt quite good when we were done. Seeing as I was tired, sweaty and dusty, had a sore bottom, had gained a new bruise on my leg to go with the two I got last week and was pretty mucky from helping Adam change one of the inner tubes that came down with a puncture, it seems a bit weird that I felt good, but I did.

Anyway, apart from the puncture, we enjoyed the ride through some lovely countryside. I meant to take some photos for the blog but I clean forgot. Oh, except the ones I took whilst we were looking for a cache on the University of Kent campus.

Students, eh?

Holidaying at home

2005-08-15T22:54:00.000+01:00

When we knew that, because of my course, we could only take a holiday in August, we didn't want to pay through the nose for a holiday in peak time so decided to holiday at home. It's all too easy to miss visiting what's on your own doorstep - even though geocaching has taken us to lots of parts of Kent, we do have a tendency to grab a cache and move onto the next one, without properly exploring the locality.

Today we drove to Dungeness to take a trip on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, which has some fantastic engines like this one:

We got off at Hythe, an attractive little town which is just like dozens of other attractive little British towns:

until you turn a corner an find this:

Back at Dungeness we went for a stroll where we found lots of strange buildings and objects rusting away:

there were wild cabbages as far as the eye could see:

and as we left for the evening, the seagulls were taking roost on the telephone wires:

Reuse, recycle, regurgitate

2005-08-14T10:45:00.000+01:00

The holiday to-do list was being tackled well at the start of the week. The major task of the week was to clear out the garage. We have a decent sized garage which enables us to store a fair amount of junk in it, yet still leaving enough room for the car. Yes, I know it's unusual nowadays, but we do actually put the car in the garage sometimes. Mostly I do that on cold days to save having to scrape ice off the car in the morning. Anyway, the junk had grown to the point where there was no room for the car, so it needed a clear out. It turns out that I had one or two plastic plant pots lurking in various parts of the garage and garden:

I was reluctant to consign them all to landfill, so I offered them on a freecycling group and they were snapped up a day later. Yay!

A hell of a lot of stuff went in the car to go to the tip. It's been a few years since I last went there and things have changed. There used to be a few places to stick the usual recyclable stuff in, like glass, cardboard and garden waste, but now they seem to have separate areas for just about everything, including metal, wood, rubble and wellies. The upshot of this was everything I took found a home in one of the recycling areas - even the dead microwave and an old plywood/chipboard cupboard (at this point I'll gloss over the 4 bags of non-recyclable stuff that went in the wheely bin).

And what did all these good karma-enhancing deeds earn me? Well, I got two huge bruises on my leg from manhandling that darn cupboard (it was big) and a day later I came down with some lurgy that had me laid up in bed with a headache and being sick, for the best part of a day and a half, ensuring my progress on the to-do list ground to a halt. Bah.

Then yesterday the lady who came to get my plant pots gave me a hyssop plant as a thankyou. So it wasn't all bad.

Whew!

2005-08-02T15:41:00.000+01:00

It's over! I have survived the final ordeal of semester 1, known as The Exam, and I am free for 5 and a half weeks! Yipee! Now I have to do all the odd jobs I put off, citing the excuse "I'm writing essays", and later, "I'm revising".

The Exam was neither stupidly easy nor as tough as I pessimistically thought it might be. I'm pretty sure I passed, then again I know I haven't got 100% either. I cannot make a more accurate guess of my results than that. It was the usual mix of exam questions:

The ones I had a strong feeling would be asked and I made sure I knew the subject well. This included the assessment of a chest x-ray for technique and quality - pretty standard stuff.

The ones I had a strong feeling would be asked but I couldn't get the facts to permeate into my brain no matter how much I tried. Primarily this was the question asking for a description of the process of healing of a bone fracture - I don't know my osteoclasts from my osteoblasts.

The ones that completely surprised me and required a fair amount of guesswork and waffle. The prime culprit here was the question that asked the wavelength ranges of certain parts of the electronmagnetic spectrum. We had had a lecture on this but I had assumed it was just taught as background for the future physics lectures, I hadn't bothered to learn all the wavelengths and frequencies. After all, why would a radiographer need to know the frequency of infrared light? At least I could remember what order they were in.

And of course, all the stuff that I had learned inside out that wasn't in the exam, like the attenuation of radiation. I had no chance at all to prove that I knew that I_x = I₀e^-μx

The biggest trouble I have with exams is the actual writing itself. At the best of times my handwriting is messy and it has been all my life. Doing virtually all my writing on a PC nowadays has meant it has got worse. Under pressure, I tend to get letters the wrong way round, put capitals in the wrong place and the letters come out all different sizes. I have to assign myself a few minutes at the end of exams to correct any malformed letters. My hand also hurts when I hold a pen too long. Oh, and my grammer goes to pieces too. I pity the poor person who has to mark my exam.

Just a little update

2005-07-15T21:17:00.000+01:00

Thanks for the kind words on my last post guys - it really was appreciated.

Had my study day yesterday, still felt very miserable, brain in a total fog meant I did very little actual study. Only two weeks to go before my exam and essay hand-in so weekends and evenings are going to have to be utilised in getting my revision and essay writing done. Felt very guilty about feeling so sorry for myself after yesterdays two minute silence reminded me my problems are tiny compared to many people's.

Today my head has cleared sufficiently for me to have a good day at placement which has gone some way to restoring my confidence in my own abilities. I have given myself permission to sod study tomorrow and get some therapeutic fresh air and exercise at the Kent Show which is always a fab day out.

As an interesting aside, I found this on the Oxford English Dictionary's website. I was especially interested to see that they can't find a reference in print to bouncy castles before 1986. I'm sure I played on bouncy castles in my childhood and, as I was 15 in 1986, I'm sure they existed before then. At least, I'm fairly sure I didn't play on a bouncy castle after the age of 15. Next time I'm at my parent's house I'm going to see if they have any old village fete programmes knocking about.

Therapy

2005-07-13T14:02:00.000+01:00

Hell, I started this blog thinking it would be good therapy but I haven't really used it as such. I'm going to today. I'll warn you now - this blog is going to be long and waffly, most probably a little incoherent and definitely gloomy - so if you have a problem with that go and read someone else's blog. It's not like I'm writing this specifically for someone else to read, I just need to get some things out of my head.

I really hate the black dog. You think you have successfully kicked it out then, when you least expect it, it sneaks back and bites you on the arse. I don't want it to stop me from successfully completing this course - I know I have the ability to be a radiographer and I want to be a radiographer, and besides if I run away from this I don't know where I can go next.

Sometimes I feel like there are two of me living inside my head. There is the rational one, that thinks logically. My rational self knows what is going on and is sensible and realistic. The other one is my emotional self that lives on feelings and can't think rationally. Sometimes my rational self is stronger and can tell my emotional self not to be so silly and that is good. Sometimes my emotional self is stronger and won't listen to my rational self no matter how loud it shouts and that is generally bad. I've just read that back to myself and it sounds so screwed up, but that is how I am.

I'm not a very confident person. Often I can pretend fairly convincingly that I am confident, but I'm not. My lack of confidence can lead to me getting stressed. When I get stressed, I often take an ostrich approach - I try to ignore the stressed stuff in my head by distracting myself, usually by spending too long on the internet or by watching any old crap on the television. The reason I left my IT job in London 5 years ago was I was badly managed, I was expected to get on with stuff I didn't have the ability and confidence to do and I was too nervous and silly to do anything to improve my situation. So I did a poor job, used the internet too much at work and got badly told off for both when all I was doing was the best I could. Consequently I now take criticism, even the most friendly and constructive criticism, very, very personally and get all upset.

I have several stressors at the moment on my placement. One is the aforementioned criticism. My rational self tells me this criticism is good, it is vital to my learning, it's not at all personal, but my emotional self goes to pieces when I am criticised. My emotional side is also convinced I am not progressing nearly as fast as I should be, and it won't listen at all to my rational side which says this is nonsense as I am only on my eighth placement week. I also feel I have so much to learn and remember and so much coursework to do at the moment and this is only the first semester - if I can't cope now, how am I going to manage when the amount of coursework I have to do increases?

Anyway, I had a long sob over all this on Adam's shoulder last night and today, when Rebecca, my personal tutor, came to the hospital to see me I was still feeling emotionally raw and, to my horror, I couldn't stop myself bursting into tears in front of her. Luckily, she was wonderful about it, I was able to tell her all about how I was feeling and what was worrying me and she was able to reassure me that I was progressing well, no one she had spoken to at the hospital had a bad word to say about me (or any of the other students) and the next few semesters shouldn't be as hard as the learning curve wouldn't be so steep. She also let me go home for the afternoon which was good as I could go have a good bawl in private which I really needed to do.

Tomorrow is my study day so hopefully I'll have got myself together again for Friday. I'd just like to find myself a very large metaphorical gun so I can blow that bloody black dog's head off.

Angry

2005-07-07T18:23:00.000+01:00

I don't need to tell you what the main news of the day is. Although Adam works in central London, thankfully he wasn't affected. It's always there at the back of my mind, a concern about his welfare when he is at work, even though he works on the opposite side of the river to the most likely terrorist targets in London. I'm very angry at the sort of moral-less, cowardly scum that make me worry about him, and I can't even begin to imagine how awful it must be for the relatives of the people that are actually affected. I hope the people that did this burn in hell.

Mmm.. doughnuts

2005-07-05T23:53:00.000+01:00

I haven't blogged much about my studies recently. Things are going OK - I completed two of my essays in good time and I managed to get them both just over the minimum number of words. I just have two more short essays to do, plus revise for my exam in August. I'm back at placement again and seeing some new stuff - barium enemas last week (aka 'bum shandies') and CT this week.

I was prompted to blog today because of the last chap we wheeled into the metal doughnut today. His scan showed a huge dark area on his brain - likely a large bleed. He had been having some severe headaches and was clearly worried. As I got him off the table he was clearly angling for some information about what the scan had shown. It was so difficult trying to be professional, yet friendly, whilst knowing something that he didn't yet know. I'd not had a problem with this before - so far the conditions I had come across were things like broken bones which aren't really serious in the way that brain problems can be. I really hope I didn't let my concern show on my face.

There was no way I could say anything to him about what we had seen. Even though the radiographer I was with was very experienced, like most radiographers she doesn't have the clinical training to diagnose anything. That is the job of a qualified doctor. That might sound a bit jobsworth-ish but its very sensible - the patient really needs to hear the diagnosis from someone who can then go on to tell him about his prognosis and treatment options, and answer his questions.

One of the first things I'll do when I'm back in on Thursday will be to look him up on the computer and find out whether the radiographer was right. Pity I'll never know what happens to him.

New shiny!

2005-06-09T21:36:00.000+01:00

It's our wedding anniversary today and the very lovely Adam has bought me a new toy! It rocks!

It's not easy, being green.

2005-06-07T19:30:00.000+01:00

I hate it when it's time for the car's yearly service, it never goes as smoothly as it should. I just want to drop it off at the garage in the morning and pick it up in the afternoon, all nice and fixed. I haven't got the time to faff around getting the little bits sorted.

This year's "little bit" number one is a couple of bits of plastic trim - one long one across the driver's door that somehow got itself bent at the end and hooked under the little indicator light on the wing, thus pulling the little bit of trim around the indicator light off. Unfortunately both bits of trim are metallic green like the rest of the car, instead of nice, sensible black. Of course they don't get supplied green, they are supplied black, so someone has to spray them.

The garage don't do spraying, though they did order the trim for me. I have a feeling this wasn't the cheapest way of getting them but, like I said, I have enough to do without trying to find out where I can get cheap plastic trim from, and anyway Adam's paying for it. So now I have to find someone to get them sprayed and the garage reckoned it would cost about £60 or so. Eeek.

I came home with he new bits of trim, black, and I noticed that the door trim has a little inset bit with "Saxo" written on it (in case I forget what sort of car it is presumably) and the new trim has a empty space for this bit, but no new bit. I hope the old bit can be prised off the old trim, but knowing my luck it won't be. Also I seem to have been sold a part I didn't need, namely the indicator itself, but I'm being a bit rubbish at the moment and didn't notice at the time. Never mind, maybe I can get rid of it on eBay.

This year's "little bit" number two is the spare wheel. Just like on the previous Saxo I had, the spare wheel has gone walkies. It lives in a cage slung under the boot and they have a tendancy to get nicked apparently. They make locking thingies for the cages now, but they cost around £100. I guess I ought to see if I can get that cheaper as it's going to cost a large part of that for a new wheel and tyre, which I'm picking up from the garage tomorrow.

Just to add to my fun today, the courtesy car played up. I adjusted the tilt of the seat back and it wouldn't lock back into place, so I had to drive around all day with no back support. My back really aches now and for some reason I feel a bit queasy too. And when I got back to the garage, just as I was getting out of the car, the back locked into place. Grrrrrr.

You know, I even managed to do a bit of studying today too. Roll on next year.

Psychowotsits

2005-06-03T19:16:00.000+01:00

At the moment, 2 out of 3 of the modules I'm studying are in IPL (Interprofessional Learning) groups - which means groups made out of a few of the radiography students, a few nursing students and a few occupational therapy students. Personally, I'm not much enamoured with the IPL modules as they seem far less relevant to us rad students than anyone else. Yesterday we had a lecture on record keeping - barely relevant as the only record keeping radiographers do is on the computer - filling in what exposures levels we used, and marking the examinations as completed. We don't write reams about patient observations that the other professions do. Today we had a totally mind-numbing lecture on Attribution Theory and Health Locus of Control - all of which to my mind just meant that some things are the fault of the patient and some aren't. Zzzzzz.

All of this confirms I was right to go into radiography, and not nursing which was my original plan way back when. I'm a scientist at heart and I can't deal with all this psychobabble. A lot of the nurses were complaining they were having trouble with essay one - "A report on the process and outcomes of a search for information on a topic of professional practice", whereas they were having much less trouble with essay two, which is all about psychobabble, sorry, psychosocial stuff. I, in contrast, found essay one fairly easy - well it was a lot of work but I understood what was needed.

I still don't have much of a clue what I'm supposed to do for essay two - for example, 1000 words of this essay have to be about one aspect of the dynamics of my IPL group. Well, everyone was friendly, we all got on well, there were no conflicts and everyone did their bit. So once I have written that everyone was friendly, we all got on well, there were no conflicts and everyone did their bit - where are the other 983 words going to come from?

Tagged too. And while I'm at it - here's an update.

2005-05-15T16:05:00.000+01:00

Like everyone else I got tagged, which is just as well as I haven't blogged for a while. Explanation below.

I have never bought a film in my life as I haven't ever liked one enough to watch it more than a couple of times - therefore it's not worth the money. Therefore the only ones I own are presents.

1. Total number of films I own on DVD/video - 4

(I also have 2 recordings of stage shows, a Red Dwarf Smeg-outs video and some very dusty exercise videos but they don't count)

2. Last film I bought - I haven't

3. Last film I watched - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

4. Five films I watch a lot - I don't

Tag five people to put this in their journal - everyone seems to have been tagged already. If you haven't - consider yourself tagged

Oh dear, that was a bit pathetic. So I'll try and redeem this entry by blogging about my work placement experiences so far.

The last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy. I have 4 days a week on placement, leaving home at 7.30am and returning at 6.00pm, so by the time I have made and eaten dinner I'm too tired to do much more than watch TV or have a quick surf. My study day is the day I get my errands done, then I do actually study. I have 5 essays to complete by the middle of July so my studying is starting to spill into evenings and weekends. Despite this I don't appear to be making much progress (I'm so crap at writing essays) so blogging has taken a back seat somewhat.

Still, placement is good. I'm not very confident in my abilities but luckily some of the radiographers have been fantastic and virtually forced me to go get stuck in, so now, at the end of my 4th week, I am pleased to say I have taken 2 x-rays, all my myself, with absolutely no help whatsoever!! I am rather pleased with myself. I now have a minimum of 218 more to take before I qualify.

I'm a little disappointed to find that there aren't as many nasty injuries happening out there in patientland as I expected. My fault, I suppose for watching too much Casualty, ER and just about every real-life health-related programme going. You tend to get the impression from them that A&E need a radiographer to do a full trauma series of x-rays every 5 minutes. The worst thing I saw was a penetrating leg fracture, and then only after it was bandaged up. I did get to go to theatre to see a medial malleolus being pinned (which looked something like this) but to be honest I didn't see much as I was too busy watching the radiographer show me how the image intensifier worked. I felt quite professional wearing my scrubs (even though they look like badly designed pyjamas) and going through doors marked 'No Entry'. Those paper masks don't half make your face feel hot though.

Oh, and I hope to have our contribution to the Blog Standard cache series in the field next week, all being well. That's all for now folks.

Inclusivity

2005-04-22T20:47:00.000+01:00

Adam had this equal opportunities survey e-mailed to him by his employers. After all the usual questions about things like age, gender and religion there was one on sexual orientation. The options were:

heterosexual

gay/lesbian

bisexual

other.

They also provided a space to fill in if you selected 'other'. The mind boggles as to what 'others' they were expecting - bestiality perhaps?

What a load of old...

2005-04-21T23:20:00.001+01:00

Having a great time on placement, and I've managed not to kill anyone yet. That may be because they haven't let me press the buttons so far. The drive there is as nasty as was feared - taking between ¾ hour and an hour each way for a 20 mile journey, which is a pretty poor average speed really.

Most of what I have seen this week have been chest x-rays - but the highlight of the week so far was when I was asked to chaperone a male sonographer doing testicular ultrasound scans. The poor sods being scanned were *so* embarrassed - which I have to admit I found rather amusing.

End of term report

2005-04-17T12:55:00.000+01:00

Well, not the actual end of term, it's the end of my first 5 week Uni block. I'm afraid I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front the last few weeks due to the Black Dog having come to visit - luckily, I'm managing to get it to sit quietly in the corner at the moment. I think it heard that I was thinking a bit too hard about all the work I'm going to have to do to pass this course.

Anyway, not much of interest has happened at Uni meantime. Well, I found it interesting but I didn't want to bore anyone with discussions on the anatomy of the ankle, or the physics of x-ray production or suchlike. I've also had a lot of helpful lectures and seminars on study skills (boy, do I need them) and some frankly rather dull stuff under the heading: Psychosocial Aspects of Health, Human Interaction and Communication.

The end of 5 weeks of study means the start of placement - yay! I've been looking forward to going on placement and actually getting to zap someone. I'm not going to say here which hospital I'm going to be at, but the town it's in has at least one disgusted resident. To be on the safe side I'd advise you to stay away from Kent if you are planning to break your wrist or ankle in the next 5 weeks.

Hurray for the holidays!

2005-03-24T11:21:00.000Z

This is good - I've been at uni four weeks and already I've got two weeks off for Easter. Unfortunately this is the last holiday I'll have until August.

I'm pleased with myself as I have got the studying done that I would otherwise have done at the beginning of the first week back. Now all I have to do is the 2 thousand chores that have built up over the last 4 weeks. I really need to work at getting organised.

Whinge incoming...

2005-03-22T11:15:00.000Z

Carol's blog reminded me of something I wanted to moan about. That seems to happened a lot.

I had some woman come up to me in Sainsbury's trying to sell me Sainsbury's banking stuff. I don't want to get cross with these people as I know they are only doing their job, and it's a pretty thankless one at that, but why can't these people take the hint that I AM NOT INTERESTED SO GO AWAY. I think telling them that I'm not interested and looking cross is a pretty big hint. Annoying me does not equal a sale.

Boing!

2005-03-20T10:08:00.000Z

I hope I am not premature in declaring that spring, my most favouritest season, has sprug! I'd been feeling a bit gloomy lately so it was lovely to go out for a day's caching in the bright, warm sunshine. It had a great effect on my mood seeing the spring flowers, bright green new growth amongst the dead stuff of last year, bees and butterflies, and being able to venture out without a coat or jacket! The countryside even smelt warm and green (except for when we walked past a giant pile of horse manure). Hard to believe it was only two weeks ago we were ankle deep in snow and the county had ground to a halt.

We did find a bit of snow lurking around still:

Considering what it looked like a couple of weeks ago its not surprising there's still some snow there (that picture is of one of the cache setters by the way).

That evening we did something I've never done before - we went to a classical concert. I really only went because it was in aid of the charity I volunteer for, but I really enjoyed it. I like classical music but I'm not the serious listener that Adam is. It was nice to find the town isn't exclusively populated by chavs, which is the way it seems if you go into the town centre on a Saturday.

I nearly got the giggles a couple of times though. Not good in a deadly serious setting like a classical concert. The first time was when I noticed the girl with the cymbals - every time she played them her fringe blew upwards. The second time, I was reading my programme and looked up so see the tuba had what looked like one of the large plastic bottles you get in water coolers stuck in it. I thought I was seeing things. Turns out it was one of these babies.

Ovine

2005-03-18T19:16:00.000Z

When I was at school, back in the dim and distance past, my fellow pupils and I were keen for the days when we no longer had to wear school uniform - in order to display a little individuality in our habiliment. So, I am finding it a little odd that at uni, at least 50% of the female students, mostly the ones under 25 or thereabouts, seem to be more or less identically dressed. They even have identical hair. From the bottom up, the student uniform consists of:

Coloured or black trainers.
Mid-blue jeans, low-waisted, boot-cut. No variation in colour or style permitted.
A slim fit (babydoll) t-shirt. Variation in colour and design is allowed.
Heavy mascara and eyeliner, eyeshadow optional.
Shoulder length hair, top layers bleached, often with streaks. Can be worn up or down.

I admit to owning a pair of the regulation jeans myself (well, I bought them for £5 in a sale - it would have been sinful not to snap up this bargain) but I am reluctant to wear them very often, precisely because everyone else does. I have plenty of skirts and trousers and jeans of other colours that I wear instead. I'm also considering putting some red in my hair (not ginger - I mean red red) but I'm not sure I'm brave enough.

Anyway, I don't understand why, when given the opportunity to wear virtually whatever they want to, half of them wear almost the same thing. Maybe I should expect them to start going "baa" soon.

Shiny happy blog

2005-03-12T21:56:00.000Z

Oh dear. My blog seems to have turned into rather a whinge medium. I have another couple of whinges saved up for when they eventually get sorted as well. Nothing serious, just some crap companies wasting my time and effort as usual.

Anyway, I shall write a non-whinge blog today. I had a pleasant birthday - had to go to uni but Adam took me out for a very yummy curry in the evening. Adam had his favourite Green Chicken curry (a speciality of that restaurant) which doesn't contain green chicken but the sauce is very, very green and Adam went home with a green tongue. Apparently some of the green survives the digestive process too. Nice.

I was very tired this morning and slept late so we only had time for three caches, of which we only found one. And a bird managed to do a large poo on my GPSr and my glove. Ugh.

Oh dear. I seem to have failed to make this a non-whinge blog. Sorry.

Concentration. Or the lack thereof.

2005-03-10T20:43:00.000Z

I think I might mention it's my birthday tomorrow. Oh, I seem to have done.

I'm gradually sorting out this studying lark. Try as I might, I cannot spend all day at home studying - my brain wanders off to other things. It's not like my brain wanders off to anything interesting - I caught myself pondering the gardening yesterday, FFS. Still, I was trying to get to grips with the concept of "problem based learning" at the time, so it's not surprising. No, I'm much more effective if I go somewhere else to study. By that I mean the uni or a library, not a field or anything. That would be silly and more than a little impractical.

Let the train make the strain

2005-03-07T22:04:00.000Z

I mentioned before I wasn't able to have my clinical placement at my old hospital which is 10 mins walk away. Well, we were told which hospital we had got today and I was pleased to see that we are able to claim back the cost of travelling to placement if it is more expensive than getting to uni. Not the difference, the whole cost, which is quite good really.

However, I read the guidance notes, I found they will only refund students who get to placement by car if public transport is "unavailable or unsuitable". I guess they want students to be "green" as normally using the car is cheaper than public transport. As it happens, there is a bus service which is almost door-to-door and I'd be happy to use this if I don't have to pay. I checked the bus timetable - it doesn't run early enough to get me there by 8.45am. I checked the trains and was amazed to find I would need to change trains twice to get to a town 18 miles away! And it would take about 2 hours once I include the walk each end of the journey. Adam can get to work in central London quicker by train!

So I have sent a pleading e-mail to the nice placement lady at uni, hoping she will see that public transport is indeed "unavailable or unsuitable" and let me claim the cost of using my car. After all, about £600 a year is at stake here.

Skools out!

2005-03-02T18:45:00.000Z

I've had an interesting week so far. On Monday I had a lecture called "The Nature of Matter" which was basic O level chemistry stuff and it was a breeze. I also had a lecture called "Cells and Tissues" which went straight over my head as I haven't done any biology since I was 13, before I made my O level choices. Further study required here. I also looked around the x-ray lab and had to listen to the tutor moan (good naturedly) about them not letting him have the dark room without the window - as it would have "spoilt the look of the building". Fear not, they got a blackout screen and it fits now.

On Tuesday was another IT session and I found out we have to take 4 modules of the ECDL. I have looked at the sample tests and this is also going to be a breeze. I had a go at the quizzes on the third-party EDCL training system the uni uses and they are driving me bonkers. As you know, there are several ways of doing many things in Windows applications but this software is a Windows simulation and it only recognises one way of doing each thing. Usually that one way is not they way I do it. I hope the tests don't use this simulator.

Today was a ~~day off~~ study day. I left home at 7.30am to do a spot of voluntary work in town, about 1 mile away. There was no snow. By the time I left, it had been chucking it down with snow for about 4 hours solid. It took 2 hours to get home through the traffic and by the time I got home I was a nervous wreck as I was convinced I was going to crash the car. The nice folks in the chat room suggested tea and sweet things and calming music which did the trick.

I have just checked Blackboard, the uni information system, and all lectures are cancelled tomorrow. I'm glad, as don't think I could have made it there anyway, unless there is a mass thaw overnight which is unlikely. I suppose I better be a good student and spend tomorrow reading up on cells.

Week one continued...

2005-02-25T19:34:00.000Z

Days two and three were more of the same, except there was lots of hanging around partly due to people who were supposed to talk to us being snowed in, partly due to bad planning I think. Still, I got to spend time chatting to some of my new classmates - there are 20 of us and I have chatted to about half so far, plus a few nursing and occupational therapy students too.

Today was the first of two sessions introducing us to the IT in use by the uni. Lots is done via computer at the uni - most of the tutor-student communication, room bookings, progress and action plans, etc. We can even access all this at home - I have tried it and it all works (so far at least).

I had to laugh, though. We were told about next Tuesday's IT session for the first time today and when we were shown how to use the room booking database it listed the IT session as being next Thursday instead. I pointed this out to the tutor and she said "Ignore that, it's definitely on Tuesday". What's the point of a fabby IT system when the data on it is wrong? Oh, well, makes life interesting.

First day! Hurrah!

2005-02-22T22:52:00.000Z

I was a bit concerned last night the snow might make me miss my first day at uni, but I needn't have worried - not much fell. The day was OK - mostly 'welcome to the university' and admin stuff - but one thing was annoying. I won't be able to have my clinical placement at the hospital I worked at until recently, which is only 10 minutes walk away. You see, the campus I'm attending is new this academic year and the healthcare students are split between the 2 campuses. The new campus is closer to home which is partly why I chose it, but I also partly chose it as 'my' hospital was supposed to be one of the one used for placements by the new campus. Hope you are following so far. Today I found out they have more students at the old campus than the new one, so they needed to reallocate one of the hospitals to the old campus. Guess which one. Bah. Oh well, I haven't had to drive to work for 2 years so I guess I'm due a return to the world of commuting.

One of the other things on the menu today was uniforms. All the skinny girls went home with a carrier bag full of uniforms, I was told they'd have to make mine as they didn't have my size. The uniform lady insisted the ones in my size must have all been taken in the earlier session but I still felt a bit embarrassed.

I also got two free gifts today! A clear plastic square with an L on it and a clear plastic square with an R on it. 10 points to the first person to say what they are used for. I wonder if I can make them into earrings?

And the money kept rolling in

2005-02-17T19:01:00.000Z

My Grand Study Clearout has generated lots of things that I am gradually trying to offload onto some poor sods via eBay. Everything on there so far has at least one person watching it, so looking good for a few extra pennies in the kitty! A needlepoint kit I'm selling has 6 watchers on it with 4 days to go - will I get a bidding war, I wonder?

*rubs hands gleefully*

Oh, and a little music quiz. I have done a JG and used a song for my blog title. Anyone know which musical it's from?

Virginal

2005-02-15T20:41:00.000Z

Today I did something for the first time, and something else that I had only done once before. The latter thing was getting my hair dyed. It's not that I mind the grey hairs per se but it's making the colour of my hair look washed out and I have been hating the way it looks for ages. So I finally got around to getting it coloured so I can start the next chapter of my life with a new hair colour. Don't get excited - I haven't dyed it pink (though I was very tempted), just a shade or two darker than my natural shade of nondescript brown.

I'd pretty much forgotten what getting my hair dyed involved, as last time was for our wedding and there were other things happening around then that have taken precedence in my memory. I'm also not terribly keen on the hairdressers as they always try to engage me in small talk, which I find difficult to do in a noisy salon when the other person is standing behind me. The first step was having dye plastered all over my hair, then I had to sit for half an hour for the dye to do it's thing. I accepted the offer of something to read and was given a copy of OK! magazine, which I'm not sure fulfilled the description of 'something to read'. So I amused myself looking at the pictures, most of which were of people I had never heard of. Then came the part where I had to lean my head back over one of the dreaded sinks-that-make-your-neck-really-hurt that I remembered all too well from my teenage years when I has permed hair. Then was the cut and blowdry, and afterwards the hairdresser said that the colour looked natural and you couldn't tell it was dyed, which disappointed me a little - after all, if I'm going to spend £45 squids on may hair, I'd quite like it to look like I've had something done. Actually I do like it, though I may go a bit darker next time. Or maybe pink.

The thing I did for the first time today was apply for my car tax disc online, which was a surprisingly quick and painless experience. Well, better than going to the Post Orifice for it anyway. Then again, I don't actually have the disc itself yet, so I guess I should wait before passing judgement.

Stuff, stuff and more stuff.

2005-02-06T01:43:00.000Z

It's funny that Carol should blog about tidying, because that is what I've been trying to do all week. You see, when we moved into this house, I claimed the littlest bedroom as a place to call my own and have my stuff in. Now I am going to be a student, I need this space to be a tidy and efficient work space for the purposes of studying in - trouble is, over the space of 5 years this room has got so full it's difficult to turn around in.

For the first time today I really started to think about the stuff I have, why I have it and why I've been finding it so difficult to throw it away. Emotionally, I mean. Physically, I could just sling it in the bin, which is no hassle at all.

Some of the stuff I have been given as gifts, so it is difficult to throw it away because I feel really guilty about throwing away a gift. Some of the stuff I bought myself, because I liked the look of it or I thought it would be useful. This is difficult to throw away because, if I do, I feel like I wasted the money I spent on it in the first place. Even if it only cost 50p. 10 years ago.

This is an excellent example:

It is pretty, and has dinky little drawers that would be really useful for keeping little odds and ends in. Thing is, I have never kept anything in it and if I did, it would only be odds and ends that I really should throw away anyway. But it's pretty.

And of course, there is all the stuff that might be useful someday. Which never will. But it might. And there is all the stuff I've made which I can't even contemplate throwing away. And all the craft materials to make such stuff which I will use someday. And the half-finished projects that I will finish someday.

The most ridiculous clutter I have found is a load of files, folders and storage boxes bought with the purpose of organising and tidying things into. All never used. I think I need my head looking at.

Thing I learnt today: My laptop has a function key combination to disable the touchpad. I found this out after Tasha walked over the keyboard and I spend ages being cross with her because I thought she'd broken it.

Catch up

2005-02-01T18:11:00.000Z

Well dear reader, it's been a while since you and I last spoke and a few things have happened since then. Friday was my, rather anticlimactic, last day at work - i.e. I went to work, said 'bye' to a few people, went home, that was pretty much it.

Saturday, Adam & went geocaching and decided to do what is probably Kent's highest terrain-rated cache, Sugar Hill. The description says 'not suitable for wet weather'. It had rained the night before. Put off? Us? Nah. First we picked our way down a very slippery muddy path which was about 2 foot wide which went down for about 100m. Then we went up this stupidly steep and muddy hill - see the little white line up the side? That was the path. Well, we managed not to slide all the way back to the bottom, which was good as the hill was about 120m tall. The most stupid thing was - there was a much easier and safer way back via a footpath not marked on the map and the road. Oh well, it was a good viewpoint for a photo.

Sunday, at about 10pm, Adam decided to disconnect the washing machine as we were having a new one delivered the next day, on account of our old one issuing forth blue smoke the previous weekend. He found the two little taps on the feeder pipes to the washing machine had seized up, as had both the hot water and cold water stopcocks. Bum.

Monday, Adam decided to 'work from home' and made hurried phone calls to find a plumber who could get here before the new washing machine did. Luckily one could, and did, and I was left to clean up some foul smelling water that had spilled out of the hoses whilst Adam made a very long work phone call.

Today I finally got my joining instructions for university! I found out I am starting on Tuesday 22nd, not Monday 21st as previously informed, and I will spend 3 days a week in university on study weeks and 4 days a week in hospital on placement weeks. So I have decided to change my blog title in honour of me being nearly a student. It won't be long now before I ~~irradiate~~ perform a radiograph on my first patient!

A terrifying experience with the bad hair day

2005-01-19T06:37:00.000Z

This blog post ~~fulfils~~ is a major cop out for the assignment A terrifying experience with the bad hair day at lazyblog.org. You can rate it if you feel like it here.

Calm Down Dear...

2005-01-07T11:14:00.000Z

So it was time to renew my car insurance which was something I wasn't looking forward to. You see, I was going to have to put myself down as a student which I was sure would make the insurance companies run away screaming, or at the very least hike the premiums up. I couldn't take out the insurance under Adam's name as he hasn't any no-claims, due to him never having actually owned a car.

My current insurer sent though a renewal quote of £340 so I decided to start by getting a new quote off of their website. The thing I like about getting insurance quotes from the internet is, you can keep going back and tweaking it unitl you get a quote you like. For instance, I have found in the past that putting Adam down as anything to do with IT is more expensive than calling him a 'bank employee', which is true as he works for a bank. Just in the IT department.

Car insurance websites are getting easier to fill in, with less stupid questions, so I filled it in quickly and pressed the button to get the quote. The next moment had me shouting out: "Adam, I put myself down as a student and it quoted me £1200!!". After I calmed down, we discussed whether I could get away with calling myself a housewife. I wasn't sure but I went back and changed it and the quote went down by about £10. I smelt something fishy.

I don't know where these insurance companies get their database of registration numbers from but when I put mine in, instead of it coming up with a nice little 1.1, it had come up with a 1.4 VTI turbo-nutter-bastard, or some such thing. Luckily I was allowed to change it back to a 1.1 and the quote went down to £310, even with me as a student. Phew.

A few websites later, most of which got my car right, and I have a quote of £230, which includes legal claims assistance and NCD protection and I am down correctly as a student, so it looks like my fears were unfounded. A few insurers did run away screaming - like esure, which has a rather odd list of exclusions. According to that list, they won't even insure that annoying wombat, Michael Winner, who fronts their adverts.

He's here...

2004-12-28T18:46:00.000Z

Good: I accidently managed to spend more than I intended to in the Lush sale and got two free gift boxes.
Bad : We went to the cinema to see 'Phantom of the Opera' and there were two men having a stand up row in the foyer.
Good: It gave us something to laugh at.
Bad : We bought our drinks and icecreams and then found out the cinema had a computer problem and Phantom was running 45 mins late.
Good: We got two free tickets as compensation.
Bad : I drunk all my diet coke whilst we were waiting for the film to start so I spent 3/4 of the film with an increasingly uncomfortable bladder.
Good: I loved the film!

Driving home for Christmas

2004-12-23T23:35:00.000Z

Well, Adam's childhood home at any rate.

Adam & I will be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go off to Norwich to spend Christmas with his folks in a non-internet connected household. So I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Xmas and I hope Santa brings you lots of nice things!

A Logic Problem

2004-12-21T09:38:00.000Z

Consider this:

You are a contestant on a gameshow where the object is to win a car. The gameshow host shows you three doors and tells you that the car is behind one door and there are goats behind the other two. He asks you to pick a door. You pick a door but the gameshow host does not open that door. Instead he opens one of the other doors to reveal a goat (he knows which door the car is behind). He then gives you the chance to change your mind and pick the other unopened door instead. What should you do?

I reckon that you have greater odds of winning the car if you change, because I read about this problem in 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time' and it makes perfect logical sense to me. Adam insists there is a equal chance of the car being behind either door.

What do you think?

Huh?

2004-12-13T22:51:00.000Z

On Friday, Adam arrived home to tell me he had received a workload request, that day, for 23 days of his time in December. December 2004.

Deck the halls...

2004-12-12T22:48:00.000Z

Well, we didn't do the hall, but we did do the living room. And each year it gets harder to find somewhere to plug the fairy lights into. You see, behind our telly are two sockets, and the demand on these sockets grows every year.

Before we put up the decorations, socket one (to be left on all the time) had a 6-socket thingy plugged into it, this in turn had plugged into it:
- A TV
- A video recorder
- A DVD player
- A satellite box
- A lava lamp (which has an on/off switch)
- One of these gizmos

Socket two (to be turned on as required) had a 4-socket thingy plugged into it which in turn had plugged into it:
- A halogen floor lamp
- A water mister
- A thing made out of lots of coloured LEDs that cycle through the spectrum
- A 2-socket thingy with a wireless MP3 player plugged into one socket and the hifi into the other.

Oh, and BTW the hifi is 4 separate units (turntable, CD player, amplifier and radio tuner) which are wired into another thingy enabling them to share one plug. With me so far? Thought not.

Anyway, we had to work out what to sacrifice in order to plug in the fairy lights that hang in the window and the two sets that go on the tree. And they had to go on socket two as they couldn't be on all the time. We decided the water mister and the coloured-LED-thingy were non-essential and Adam wired both sets of tree lights into one socket, which he assured me was safe. All sorted.

Part of our socket problem due to Adam's fascination with interesting lighting devices - nearly all of which require mains electricity. We have 4 others in the living room alone. And then there are the vintage radios - one in nearly every room, including the bathroom (although that one is battery powered). And of course there are the computers, the broadband modem and the wifi device.

And to think I thought the house had more than enough sockets when we moved in.

Wrapping Presents with a Cat

2004-11-28T22:37:00.000Z

MMM's recent blogs reminded me of this which I read recently:

Clear large space on table for wrapping present.

Go to wardrobe and collect bag in which present is contained, and shut door.

Open door and remove cat from wardrobe.

Go to cupboard and retrieve rolls of wrapping paper.

Go back and remove cat from cupboard.

Go to drawer, and collect transparent sticky tape, ribbons, scissors, labels, etc.

Lay out presents and wrapping materials on table, to enable wrapping strategy to be formed.

Go back to drawer to get string, remove cat that has been in the drawer since last visit and collect string.

Remove present from bag.

Remove cat from bag.

Open box to check present, remove cat from box, replace present.

Lay out paper to enable cutting to size.

Try and smooth out paper, realise cat is underneath and remove cat.

Cut the paper to size, keeping the cutting line straight.

Throw away first sheet as cat chased the scissors, and tore the paper.

Cut second sheet of paper to size - by putting cat in the bag the present came in.

Place present on paper.

Lift up edges of paper to seal in present. Wonder why edges don't reach. Realise cat is between present and paper. Remove cat.

Place object on paper, to hold in place while tearing transparent sticky tape.

Spend 20 minutes carefully trying to remove transparent sticky tape from cat with pair of nail scissors.

Seal paper with sticky tape, making corners as neat as possible.

Look for roll of ribbon. Chase cat down hall in order to retrieve ribbon.

Try to wrap present with ribbon in a two-directional turn.

Re-roll ribbon and remove paper, which is now torn due to cat's enthusiastic ribbon chase.

Repeat steps 13-20 until you reach last sheet of paper.

Decide to skip steps 13-17 in order to save time and reduce risk of losing last sheet of paper. Retrieve old cardboard box that is the right size for sheet of paper.

Put present in box, and tie down with string.

Remove string, open box and remove cat.

Put all packing materials in bag with present and head for locked room.

Once inside lockable room, lock door and start to relay out paper and materials.

Remove cat from box, unlock door, put cat outside door, close and relock.

Repeat previous step as often as is necessary (until you can hear cat from outside door).

Lay out last sheet of paper (this will be difficult in the small area of the toilet, but do your best).

Discover cat has already torn paper. Unlock door go out and hunt through various cupboards, looking for sheet of last year's paper. Remember that you haven't got any left because cat helped with this last year as well.

Return to lockable room, lock door, and sit on toilet and try to make torn sheet of paper look presentable.

Seal box, wrap with paper and repair by very carefully sealing with sticky tape. Tie up with ribbon and decorate with bows to hide worst areas.

Label. Sit back and admire your handiwork, congratulate yourself on completing a difficult job.

Unlock door, and go to kitchen to make drink and feed cat.

Spend 15 minutes looking for cat until coming to obvious conclusion.

Unwrap present, untie box and remove cat.

Go to shop and buy a gift bag.

Depinked

2004-11-21T15:36:00.000Z

OK - on a whim I have ditched the pink template for a new blue one. Mostly it was because it didn't look right in Mozilla and I really can't be bothered to find out why. I also took the opportunity to change all the links for all those people who moved their blogs and the people I never added (sorry).

Maybe I'll fiddle with the template to add a bit of pink. Maybe.

Whilst I'm here I would like to thank Stu and Sarah for their hospitality last night, especially as we turned out to be awkward guests due to non co-operation of the M25 and a local hotel. Enough said about both of those.

Then again, Stu and Sarah probably won't even see this due to an appalling lack of internet connected-ness. I don't know how they will manage.

2004-11-19T10:43:00.000Z

All shiny and new

Well, I finally got to do something I have been looking forward to for ages and have visited the university I will be studying in come February - the brand, spanking new Canterbury Christ Church University College campus in Medway. There are already some students studying there (some courses including nursing and midwifery started in September) but they have only just got around to holding an open day there.

We will be sharing facilities with the University of Greenwich campus next door, which we didn't get to visit so we didn't see the really important stuff like the student union bar and the canteen, but we did get to see the teaching facilities which was all very exciting. The radiography practice rooms and equipment are all shiny and clean and ready for the first intake in February to break. We also saw the occupational therapy practice rooms which have a really comfy bed and armchair and even a kitchen and bathroom which made me wonder if it was possible to crash there after a heavy nights drinking. Ahem. There are loads of PCs to use and one really excellent room that has desks with a button underneath that you can press and a keyboard and flat-screen monitor pops up in the middle of the desk - which of course I had to try out. A couple of times.

I also discovered that the brand new campus is seriously deficient in the car parking department. The immediate area is a business park of the type that is carefully landscaped to offer no on-street parking. There is a shopping centre with 1500 parking spaces 10 mins walk away, unfortunately it is free for the first 4 hours and £5 for more than 4 hours parking. It is the sort of car park where you get a ticket at the entrance barrier and put it in the exit barrier to get out so I am wondering if I'd be able to walk up to the barrier to get a ticket on the way home so the exit barrier thinks the car was only there a few minutes. I've also heard it might be possible to get a pass for this car park which I'll look into.

So now that's over I'm back to the waiting. Only 94 days to go!!

2004-11-12T09:46:00.000Z

Obesiosity

Just doing my bit to make obesiosity a real word! If you have no idea what I am taling about see here.

2004-10-27T17:24:00.000+01:00

Excuse me, but I need to have a small rant

Considering the amount of buisness I have put the Royal Mail's way lately due to eBay sales and plenty of transactions via the Lush forum, they are really doing their best to piss me off.

Yesterday, a item I sold on eBay in August finally arrived at its intended destination. The postie on a particular round in Oxford, upon finding the intended recipient (to whom I shall refer to as Fred) not at home one fine August day, failed to leave a card announcing the attempted delivery of said parcel. After leaving a decent interval, Fred e-mailed me, concerned as to the non-appearance of his parcel. I asked Fred to check with the sorting office in Oxford, which he did, and drew a blank. Having prudently obtained a proof of posting, I set about the tortuous process of applying to the Royal Mail for compensation. Last week, I went to pick up a parcel from my local sorting office only to find it was the missing parcel! Oxford sorting office had decided in September that Fred wasn't coming to collect his parcel and sent it back to me, but heaven only knows where it been since then.

I re-sent the parcel on Monday and it arrived in Oxford on Tuesday. The Royal Mail have yet to reply to my complaint e-mail.

Today in an unrelated incident, I tried to post a parcel and failed. This side of town used to have 4 post offices but they closed down 2 to save money. The nearest one to me was saved but is now temporarily closed as Tesco bought the shop and kicked the post office out. Despite having over 6 months notice they still haven't managed to replace it, though they say they indend to. Now, the 4th post office is also temporarily closed for refurbishment. Good planning someone! I couldn't to out to a village post office as they close early on Wednesdays and I really didn't want to go to the town centre and pay to park the car just to post my parcel.

So I came home and shouted a bit.

2004-10-17T21:24:00.000+01:00

Hello from Forren

Forren is cold and rainy - well, this bit of it is anyway.

Adam and I are having a 'bit-longer-than-a-long-weekend-but-not-as-long-as-a-week' break in Copenhagen. We came here mostly because EUJet had started doing scheduled flights from Manston airport in September and Copenhagen was on the list of destinations, was somewhere we wanted to visit, the flight was cheap and Manston is quite close to us. Then EUJet cancelled their flights to Copenhagen due to lack of demand so we had to rebook with EasyJet flying from Stansted which cost twice as much and was twice as far to travel.

We are staying in a 'B' - that is, it would be a B&B but they don't serve breakfast, which seems to be the norm around here. It is also 4 floors up in a building with no lift, the bathroom is across the corridor and neither of us brought nightwear or dressing gowns but the big plus point is the room has a PC connected to broadband and we can use it for free! Yay!

Did I mention it rains a lot here?

It doesn't sound it but we are enjoying ourselves and we are getting some caching done too. The food in the restaurants is good and all the cafes do hot chocolate with whipped cream on top which is also good.

We have also done lots of walking and I really wish I had brought my pedometer with me so I could impress with some suitably large step stats. Oh, well, it was probably about 15,000 steps or so today. In the rain.

2004-10-08T14:33:00.000+01:00

Intermission

I have started a new blog. I have had a back problem for a while now and when I see my GP or my acupuncturist about it I have trouble remembering what has been happening with it, and when. This is a blog purely for my own purposes but, what the hell, you can read it if you ar interested.

I still may blog here if I feel like it.

2004-09-18T18:38:00.000+01:00

End of Act One

It's no good. My blog is sinking to the bottom like a McToy in a geocache. It's not that I've had nothing to blog about - I've had some fairly interesting ideas as it happens - but blogging has ceased to be a pleasure, and I can't think of a better reason than that to stop.

Who knows, when I start college, I might be inspired to start blogging again. Then again, I might not.

So hopefully it is au revoir, not adieu.

2004-09-06T16:03:00.000+01:00

*Hup!*

Just dragging this blog off the bottom of the SimonG blog list where it is only just being saved from gathering dust at the bottom of the pile by PaulV's blog. No excuses - I just couldn't be ostriched to blog for a while.

Adam & I had a busy 'ole weekend. On Saturday we went to the Goodwood Revival - an event we would never have been to if it wasn't for Rich's blog about the Goodwood Festival of Speed earlier in the year. I have been what you might call a 'lazy' motor racing fan for many years - i.e. if it was on terrestrial TV when I was in, I watched it, but I never went to an actual racing circuit (except Silverstone, once). When I was a teenager this meant I saw a variety of types of racing as they showed a lot in those days, but nowadays it means I just watch F1. And not F1 very much this year due to a certain driver who keeps winning everything *yawn*. Anyway it was fab, if hot, and we'll probably be going to the Festival of Speed next year. We had to get up at 5am to stand the best chance of not being stuck in (too much) traffic but it was well worth it.

Sunday saw us heading way out west again to Berkshire to meet up with some fellow cachers, including, amongst others, Omally and Paul G0TLG. It was hot again and I was keen to avoid what happened at the Oxford cache bash so we took it easy and just did 4 caches. Another fab day watching Paul getting thoroughly soaked by lots of small people with super-soakers and Omally showing everyone how space hopping is done.

Lastly, I am trying for the sympathy vote. Ever since I hurt my back a little while ago the pain has been coming and going. The last couple of days my mystery allergy has come back which is hell every time I sneeze. Owwwwww! :(

2004-08-26T23:29:00.000+01:00

Bad Taste Earrings

A genuine item, asfar as I can tell.

2004-08-20T23:18:00.000+01:00

Things that make you go duh

Ever since I've been there, there has been a buzzer for visitors to press to be let in, outside the delivery suite. It was a rather pointless buzzer as there was no lock on the door and it always stood wide open, so recently a swipecard + entryphone system has been installed. The old buzzer hasn't been removed yet, so a notice has been stuck over it, telling people to use the entryphone.

Today, a visitor took the notice off, pressed the buzzer and replaced the notice.

Also today, I found that a particular bit of our new delivery beds stain permanently if you get blood on them. Obviously designed by a man.

2004-08-19T21:38:00.000+01:00

Moi

Nicked this off Miss Sixty's blog - you are supposed to select your birth month and cross out what doesn't apply to you. I couldn't be shetland ponied to copy all of it, so go copy your month of Miss Sixty if you aren't born in March.

MARCH:
Attractive personality. Sexy. Affectionate. Shy and reserved. Secretive. Naturally honest, generous and sympathetic. Loves peace and serenity. Sensitive to others. Loves to serve others. ~~Easily angered~~. Trustworthy. Appreciative and returns kindness. Observant and assesses others. ~~Revengeful~~. Loves to dream and fantasize. Loves traveling. ~~Loves attention. Hasty decisions in choosing partners. Loves home decors~~. Musically talented. Loves special things. Moody.

Adam made me leave in 'sexy'.

2004-08-19T10:09:00.000+01:00

It's good to talk

Well, I got my car back without incident. When I picked Adam up from the station I started to tell him of the day's adventures but he had already read my blog on the train (on his WAP phone).

Hmm... I think this is killing the art of conversation.

2004-08-18T11:41:00.000+01:00

The 'Getting My Car Serviced' Adventure

The car is well overdue for a service. It was actually due for it's one year service when we bought it back in March but, because I don't have an MOT deadline to work to, I have only just got around to doing something about it. The garage I go to is on the other side of town - a town with a nasty traffic problem in rush hour, which is mostly due to a limited number of roads (i.e. one) that cross the river in town. I thought I'd been clever and left home at 7.30am but very soon I found myself in the middle of a queue of cars that were going nowhere. A swift 3-point turn and I was off on the only alternative route that didn't involve going several miles out of my way.

The alternative route took me via the pretty village of East Farleigh (incidently, there's a good cache nearby *grin*). Trouble is, there is a railway level crossing there that still has manually operated barriers and the railway chappies always close the gates in plenty (and I mean plenty) of time for the train. The level crossing also has a station right next to it, so if the train is approaching from the station side the cars have to wait even longer for the train to stop at the station first. Today, of course, I got to the crossing just as the gates were being closed. They were just playing with us today, however, as after a minute or two the gates were opened again without a train having gone through. I then had to wait for the queue of traffic that had built up over the narrow bridge beyond the crossing to pass before I could resume my journey.

I made it to the garage half and hour later than I expected, and in one piece, despite the best efforts of a lorry driver who decided to overtake a tractor on a bend. The lady from the service reception led me out to the loan car, clip-clopping along in her red stilletos with evil-looking pointy fronts that Lotte Lenya would have been proud of. I followed, taking half the number of steps that she did in my flat shoes.

I was expecting the loan car to be a Saxo, or maybe a C2, instead it was a thing called a CityRover. I turned the key; it wouldn't start. I tried a couple of times but it wouldn't even try to turn over, it just beeped at me. I went back and got the savagely-shod reception woman; the car started first go which made me feel like a right idiot. At first the car wouldn't move off, but I realised the clutch bite-point was about a foot higher than that of my Saxo, so off I went. This car is so different to my Saxo - the seat is much higher and I felt like I was driving a coach, the brakes are more sensitive (the first dab of the brakes and I was nearly through the windscreen) and the handbrake is back by my hips instead of by my thigh. They never give you more than a teaspoon of petrol in these loan cars and filling up caused a problem - the fuel cap is operated from inside the car and it took me a few embarrassing minutes at the petrol station to work out how to get it open. Thankfully I was getting used to the car by the time I got home.

All this and it was still only 9am! And I still have to collect my car and pay up. I also had to go to the dentist today - no problems, but I did have to endure the torture device that cleans plaque off your teeth and pay 35 squids for the privilege.

2004-08-17T08:24:00.000+01:00

Dishwater

I haven't blogged in a while because, quite frankly, my life has been pretty dull.

More interesting than my life at the moment is this charming website about Kent's very own holiday isle.

2004-08-08T15:43:00.000+01:00

Heat cache

You'd think someone who hates the heat would stay at home in the shade rather than going caching all day on one of the hottest days of the year. You'd think so, wouldn't you? Oh no. Instead said cacher got sunburned shoulders despite liberal application of factor 60 (it must have sweated off), a dehydration headache despite drinking gallons of water, and a heatrash on her legs.

But we did bag 10 caches and had a nice time at the Dreaming Spires cache bash. So that's alright then.

2004-08-02T10:30:00.000+01:00

Yarrrrr!

It was a hot day yesterday (have I mentioned I don't like the heat?) so we decided being by the coast may be a little cooler. To that end we went to see the World Walking the Plank Championships. The idea is that the 'plankers' jump off the plank in the daftest and most crazy way possible - and boy, were there some crazy people there.

A planker just about to end up in the drink

Some more plankers

The worrying thing is Adam has expressed an interest in being a planker next year. Sometimes I really don't understand my hubby.

2004-07-30T10:05:00.000+01:00

Cats and more cats

One thing I don't think I mentioned about our holiday was that we had found ourselves a terrific holiday flat - the owner, who lived in the flat above, was a volunteer for the local Cats Protection and, as is compulsory for a volunteer of a cat welfare charity, the place was teeming with cats. She was also fostering a tiny kitten which we took some pictures of - one of which is doing quite nicely on ratemykitten.com.

2004-07-29T21:58:00.000+01:00

Roll up, roll up...

And so ends my virginal attempt at being an eBay seller. I listed 7 things - the boring old toiletries all went; my beautiful handmade bracelets attracted not a sniff of interest. Humf.

2004-07-26T19:57:00.000+01:00

Pulling teeth

Late June: it would be helpful to know whether I am starting Uni in September or February so I can plan. It probably will be February because that is what I asked for but I need to hear it from them. I phone the admissions people and am told the deadline for students to get their preferences in was in a couple of weeks so I should hear soon after then.

Last Monday: back from hols - no letter, though I do have my bursary form which I can't fill in until I know when I will start. I call the faculty of health admissions phone number and am greeted by a long recorded message. I leave a message asking them to call back.

Last Wednesday: no phone call yet, I try the number again and hear the start of the recorded message. As I'd rather try and speak to a human, I put the phone down. I realise the end of July is approaching fast and if I end up on the September start I'll need to hand my notice in PDQ.

Last Thursday afternoon: no phone call yet, I decide to leave another message. Listen to the entire message - oh no! The end of it has changed - it says not to leave a message as it they won't answer and if the query is urgent, call the general admissions number. I phone general admissions and the message says that this person only works mornings. I leave a message.

This morning: no phone call yet, I phone general admissions - oh no! The message has changed, the admissions person has gone on holiday for 2 weeks. For really urgent queries phone this other number. I phone the other number - oh no! This person is not back in the office until Wednesday. I leave a message.

This morning (after beating my head against the desk a few times): I consult the internet, find a person listed as the 'contact' for the Medical Imaging degree. There is a recorded message, no indication that this person is on holiday or anything, I leave a message with a slightly desperate tone to it.

1 hour later: the 'contact' calls me back - I am starting in February as I hoped! Hurrah!

2004-07-26T10:50:00.000+01:00

What's new

Kittens!

2004-07-24T21:57:00.000+01:00

Messin' about

Today was the town's river festival so we wandered into town to take a look. I wish I'd taken our camera with us to take piccies of all the great boats - I did have my dinky little keyring camera with me but the pictures it takes aren't all that great. So here's a nice boaty picture nicked off the offical website instead:

I took the next two:

Bet none of Stu & Sarah's minis can do this!

Bean's relatives?

We also came across these piratey types and I think we'll be off to see the World Walking The Plank Championships next weekend.

We also got around to placing two caches further along the same river - we had scouted out the location before our holiday but hadn't had time to place them. We'd initially planned to put caches there, erm, about a year ago.

2004-07-22T22:27:00.000+01:00

Too darn hot

Wahey - I finally got around to trying out this selling on eBay lark and listed a few odds 'n' sods I had hanging around, plus a couple of bracelets I made. I was worried no one would be interested and I'd lose my money but someone has bid one item and this more or less covers my costs.

Its been too bloody hot to be at work today. Spending a couple of weeks 9° further north has brought home just how much I dislike hot days in the south of England. I'm in little doubt we'll be moving further north as long as our careers allow - hopefully in three years time when I'm a qualified radiographer

2004-07-18T13:15:00.000+01:00

We Went To the Shetlands and Survived

Well, we got home last night, all hot and bothered after 7 hours in the car, most of them in blazing sunshine. The evening was all hot and muggy too so we spent most of the evening complaining about the heat and wishing we were back in the Shetlands where it was a lot cooler. I suppose the only good thing about being home again was being able to have the cats with us again. They were both mega-happy to have been released from the cattery and have been following us about, wanting cuddles, ever since.

We both decided that, if it wasn't for the islands' extreme isolation from the rest of the UK, we'd love to go live there. Then again, the Shelands probably wouldn't be the way they are if it wasn't for the isolation. The standard of living is pretty good thanks to oil money (the Shetlands has a seriously big oil terminal), the scenery is lovely, community spirit is excellent, very little crime, houses are dead cheap, traffic is light... I could go on.

The holiday was great - we did all 6 caches, 6 trigpoints, took over 300 photos (which I'll pare down for a online photo album). Our last cache was on the island of Fetlar (slightly smaller than Guernsey with a population of about 80) - we were the first finders after over a year.

Well, I suppose now I'll have to go boring back-to-real-life stuff like attend to the mountain of washing...

2004-07-09T12:45:00.000+01:00

Huffin' and puffin

Hello from 60° North! Got here after a mammoth, two-day drive almost the whole length of Britain, capped off by a 14 hour ferry crossing. Sounds awful but it wasn't too bad really. The weather here has been surprisingly good - sunny a lot of the time and barely any rain at all. The wind is pretty chilly though. We are enjoying ourselves - so far we have done 4 of the 6 geocaches on the islands, walked an awful lot, visited 6 islands other than the one we are staying on, seen some seals and some puffins and seen a very odd bus shelter.

Photos to follow when we get home!