It's quilt time again

I don't have time to make quilts any more.  And yet mysteriously there appears to be another quilt-in-progress on the sofa this morning.

I have been yearning for a Kantha type quilt for ages, and last night I just snapped and  pulled out my sewing machine, grabbed a fairly random selection of fabrics off my shelf, and began cutting and sewing.

Kantha quilts are traditional Bengali quilts, made from large blocks of bright sari fabric, stitched together with tight rows of running stitch and other embroidered motifs.  They're all about colour and embroidery.  They are also made without wadding - just from layers of cotton cloth.  This is one of the reasons I wanted to make one, because even though I used the lightest wadding I could find for my quilt, it is still too warm on top of a duvet.

My new Kantha quilt is simply a top pieced from a mixture of vintage and quilting cottons, and a back of plain, unbleached calico.  No wadding in the middle at all. I sewed the top and back right-sides-together and left a gap for turning, so there is no need for binding either.  The top is nice and bright and true to the Kantha style in shades of pink and blue, but I left the back deliberately plain because I think when all th embroidery is done, it will show off the stitching beautifully.  Plus I love the way that plain calico shrinks and puckers when it is washed - it will really add to the wrinkly, faded feel of my quilt.

I have no doubt at all that I will spend years doing all the embroidery; the quilt is massive.  But I can use use it in the meantime, because it doesn't need binding and there are no pins in it.  I spread it out over my side of the bed last night, and I wasn't too warm at all.  It made me smile this morning too, when I woke up to to rain and wind lashing against the windows but sunny pink fabric spread out over me, as if spring was already here.

Winter fairisle hat

The temperature, even in inner London, was minus two at half-past eight this morning when I took Olivia to school.  If I'd been working I would have left the house at ten past six, when I suspect it would have been even colder.  It is even getting a little bit too cold for my liking now.

But of course the redeeming feature of this teeth-shuddering weather is that I can layer myself up in shawls, hats and armwarmers until I look like a woolen Mrs Tiggywinkle.  Last night I came home from work to find a parcel from my Mum containing the most wonderful hat which she had knitted for me.

Tired eyes, happy smile, new hat.

It is a slouchy fairisle beanie hat, knitted from Kate Davies's Tantallon pattern, with a few size modifications.  You can see all the details on my Mum's Ravelry page, here.  The extra rows make it more of a slouchy shape, which I love.  It is incredibly warm, and comfortable, and I don't think you're going to see me wearing anything else on my head for a very long time.

I bought Mum Kate Davies's new book, The Colours of Shetland, for Christmas.  I love every single pattern in there, and even if you weren't going to knit anything from it, the book would be worth buying for the glorious photos alone.  I've not attempted any fairisle knitting myself yet.  It baffles me in the way that sock knitting once did; but I got the hang of that, and now love making socks, so perhaps it won't be too much longer before I give fairisle a go.

For now though, I need to curl up on the sofa with my new hat on, a shawl around my shoulders and a quilt over my knees and have a nap.  All this caring for other people is quite exhausting.

Domestic handover

One of my favourite parts of each shift I do at the hospital is the first and last 30 minutes, when we hand over responsibility for the patients to or from the next shift.  It goes something like this:

"In Bed 1 we have A, a lady admitted yesterday following a fall at home.  Her sodium levels are low, she has diabetes, and we need to monitor her fluid balance very carefully today.  She is restricted to 500mL fluid intake a day and someone needs to bleep the pharmacist because we're running low on the anticoagulants she has been prescribed.  The physio's coming to see her later because she's rather unsteady when she walks.

In Bed 2 we have B, a gentleman transferred from ITU yesterday following abdominal surgery.  He has very high blood pressure, and desaturated overnight.  The on-call Doctor came out at 2am and prescribed anti-hypertensive medication.  He is receiving IV antibiotics."

I love this part of the day because it is fascinating.  Each patient is a complex person with many needs and problems that need to be solved.  The handover sets the agenda for the day.  We find out who is deteriorating and what the plan is for them, who can go home today, who is going for an X-ray or an MRI scan, and who is due to come in.

There's still masses of terminology I am not sure of, but I'm picking it up steadily.  In a year or two's time, I'll be the one giving the handover.

Graham and I now have a similar sort of domestic handover when I'm about to embark on a couple of days of long shifts, or I'm about to have a couple of days off at home.  It goes something like this:

"We caught another mouse in the trap behind the cooker last night, but I haven't emptied the trap yet.  Olivia came home from school today with a note about a school trip next week; I've marked it on the calendar, and she'll need three quid spending money.  Cam's done his maths homework, but still has geography to do.  The chickens have eaten all those cabbage leaves and you owe me fifty quid because I had to put petrol in the car this evening."

"I made cinnamon buns, they're in the Union Jack tin on top of the fridge, and there are only three left"

I like this domestic handover as much as I do the nursing one.  It helps me concentrate on one role at a time - either I am at home and I know what is going on, or I am at work and someone else knows what's going on and I don't need to worry about it.  I am starting to realise that I can't (and shouldn't) be trying to do everything.  It's a wonderful thing to be able to hand the domestic sphere over to someone else for a couple of days, while I make sure I understand the difference between MRI, MRSA and MIBG.

(...and I do: MRI is magnetic resonance imaging - a 3D image inside the body; MRSA is methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus - an antibiotic resistant infection; and MIBG is metaiodobenzylguanidine - a radioactive chemical used to treat certain types of cancer)

Book collections

I realised a few days after Christmas, that I've had my Kindle for a year now - it was a Christmas present from Graham last year.  I keep my ebooks organised into folders: To Read, Currently Reading and Finished.  My Finished folder had 71 books in it on Boxing Day, so that is how many ebooks I read last year.  On top of that there were quite a few paperbacks - and plenty of textbooks - which I read too.

It surprised me to find out how much I read.  I think that was a pretty normal year for me - I've probably read close to a hundred books in total, or roughly two a week.  Many of them were quick trashy reads, and many more were well-crafted, intelligent books.  I'm quite eclectic in my tastes.  A quick flick through my Finished folder reminds me that some of the highlights in 2012 were:

• Sound of a wild snail eating by Elizabeth Tova Bailey
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• The Partridge and the Pelican by Rachel Crowther
• The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
• Jackdaws by Ken Follett
• Ed King by David Guterson
• If Nobody Speaks of Remakable Things by Jon McGregor
• The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas
• Almost French by Sarah Turnbull

This afternoon I spent time with new cookbooks - some received for Christmas, and some recent purchases which I hadn't had time to rummage through properly.

All four books are now begging for me to make things from them.  My menu plan for the next couple of weeks is filling up nicely.

But the one book I've failed to make any headway with today, is my reflective journal.  A notebook (a lovely Rob Ryan notebook no less) in which I am meant to be reflecting on a regular basis about my experiences on placement.

A great deal of the writing we do on our nursing course is reflective - exploring what happened, how we reacted or behaved, and what we would do differently next time.    We have to write reflective essays, as well as writing reflective pieces in our portfolio of experience, and keeping a reflective journal.

I am finding it ridiculously difficult - ridiculous mainly because I love blogging, and it struck me quite early on that blogging is a form of reflective writing.  I can see how reflective writing would be useful for my studies too - there is so much to take in, and so much that is emotional and challenging on the wards, that it would be good to get everything down on paper and make sense of it.  I often end a shift feeling like I need a pensieve like Albus Dumbledore's, into which I could dump all my thoughts and experiences until I was ready to make sense of them.

So I'm not sure why I have not got the hang of reflection yet.  I have this little textbook to help me, which is brilliant, and I shall keep trying.  Just as soon as I've spent a little bit longer with Hugh, Nigel and the others.

New Year's Resolution

Just one New Year's Resolution for 2013...

 

...eat more smoked salmon.

Where I was - 2012

How can a year be so wonderful and so hard all at once?  That was 2012.

I started the year at home, going for walks in my usual favourite haunts - Epping Forest, Kew Gardens, Mum and Dad's house in France, the streets of London.

At Kew Gardens

 

In Epping Forest

 

Hiking in France

 

Life ticked along.

Waiting for the tube - reading my Kindle

Then in June I decided to see if I might be able to apply for a place at University in 2013 to do a post-graduate nursing degree, despite my lack of any science A-levels.  I took Olivia with me to the summer Open Day, and thought to myself there's no harm in finding out. 

By the end of the day I'd had a first interview (with Olivia sitting by my side - solemnly reading her Beano) and had been given a date for my second interview.  Two weeks later I had my offer - for 2012, not 2013.  What I thought might take a year to sort out, took just a fortnight.

Olivia reading her Beano , as we waited for a lecture on student finance at City University

In August the sportsmen came to town, and we all went to the Olympic Stadium.  Cam went as a performer too.

In the Olympic Park with flags - Cam and me

In September I started University for the second time and became a student nurse - the best, most overwhelming, most interesting thing I've done in my adult life.  So many injections, so much work, so many biology workbooks, so many flasks of coffee, so many hours referencing essays.

At West Smithfield - on my way home from the Health Sciences library

 

First day at university - lunch, a bottle of water and coffee

In December I left the comfort of the campus behind and started my first placement - working long shifts in a large London hospital.  On my first day, as I walked to the tube along dark, cold streets at 6am, I thought to myself 'this is the single most scary thing I've ever done in my life'.

An early morning walk for me and Graham - late November

And before I knew it, it was Christmas.  Two people in the family were very poorly and I was reeling with exhaustion.  I've spent the last few days feeling thankful:

• for lovely, long-limbed children, who are kind and who make me laugh
• for my own health - I've learnt this autumn and winter that you can't take health for granted
• for friends who let me doze on their sofa, and forgive me when I don't write and forget to post their Christmas presents
• for corner shops that sell Green and Blacks and decent cheap wine
• for the doctors and nurses who looked after my own loved ones so well - I hope other people might think the same of me one day.

Dad and Graham - in France, Easter 2012

Me and Nigel Slater - New Year's Eve 2012

Along the way there were also two new nieces, a second hip replacement operation for my Mum, the arrival of a slow cooker and the departure of the bread machine, a bit of journalism, plenty of sewing, quite a bit of knitting and numerous cakes.  Olivia took up the French Horn and Cam became a teenager.  I don't think there'll ever be another year like it for testing me, challenging me and rewarding me.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Where I was in previous years:
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007

10 things

It's not that I've become disorganised - it's just that things have simply not been done.  I haven't even written any lists.

• No cards have been bought - or sent.  No, not made either.
• Graham has seven presents because I kept forgetting exactly what I'd bought for him already.
• Some people's presents are still sitting on my desk, waiting to be wrapped and posted.
• No parsnips have been bought.  Don't tell Cam - they're one of the foodie highlights of his Christmas.
• Tomorrow I shall be breaking with tradition and going round to a friend's house, rather than making the stuffing and listening to Carols from King's.
• Graham and the children put up the tree and decorated the house yesterday, while I was at work.  I came home, late in the evening, to a Christmassy house - magical.
• Cam has made the latest batch of mince pies.  He puts much more mincemeat in than me, which is a popular development.
• I need to prioritise my nap times.
• My brain's so fuzzy that I'm not sure what day of the week it is, but I know it's nearly Christmas.
• All will be well, because the bottles of alcohol in the fridge outnumber the bottles of milk.

And there's a bottle of bubbly and two bottles of Aspall's just out of shot

 

10 things on a Monday evening

Walking to the tube - 6am on a Monday morning

• My alarms go off at 5:28am and 5:30am on work days.  I am so worried that I might oversleep that I'm usually awake and waiting for the alarms to go off by 5:25am.
• I eat my toast in the kitchen, listening to Farming Today on Radio 4.  I love that I live in London, work in a massive, modern hospital, but listen to Farming Today talk about partridge and fertiliser prices when I'm having my breakfast.
• I wrap up well and set off for the tube station at just gone 6am.  Graham and the children are still in bed, fast asleep. 
• The roads are quiet, but there is a steady stream of other early bird workers walking to the tube with me.  I don't get a seat; the carriages are all standing-room only by 6:15am.
• I am wearing no earrings, no watch, no necklace, no bracelet and no wedding ring.  I carry my uniform in my bag and I have my mobile tucked into the pocket of my jeans as a portable watch.
• I arrive on my ward a little early, and once I've changed I sit in the Doctors' office drinking a cup of coffee until handover begins.
• I work a 13 hour shift, with two 30 minute breaks.  It flies by.  I talk to patients, relatives, nurses, doctors, porters, phlebotomists, receptionists, a radiographer, and the guy from the IT department.
• I love every single minute of it.  Truly.
• On the way home, I get a seat on the tube after just one stop.  I read my book and nearly miss my stop.
• I get home just in time to see Cam before he goes to bed, but Olivia has been asleep for over an hour.  Graham nobly listens to me witter on about my day and all the amazing things I've seen and done.  He wants to go to bed too, but I'm still wide awake and needing to process my day.  I decide to let him go to bed, and I write my blog instead.

10 things on a Friday night

Tonight I am...

• Pleased that Graham bought not just a bottle of wine, but also olives, on his way home.
• Thinking of the patients on my ward - today has been my first day off this week, and I'm wondering how they've all got on today.  They may well be relieved that the student nurse has not been around to put the blood-pressure cuff on the wrong way round again.
• Bracing myself for a trip to Westfield tomorrow morning, with Olivia, to go Christmas shopping.  Oh my.
• Annointing my hands with posh handcream.  All the alcohol handrub at the hospital is taking its toll.
• Considering whether to head off to a farmer's market on Sunday morning.
• Missing my University friends - one is on the same ward as me, but the rest are scattered across a variety of different hospitals and wards in London and I may not see them until March because our shift patterns are so antisocial.
• Making a list of cakes I want to bake this weekend.
• Shrugging off my usual no-decorations-whatsoever-until-the-weekend-before-Christmas-at-the-very-earliest attitude, and wondering whether it might be nice to string up a few twinkly lights this weekend.
• Wishing I'd had a photographer in the car this afternoon when I was driving Olivia back from school - the sunset was breathtaking.
• Going to curl up on the sofa to watch some old episodes of Cold Feet - I had forgotten how lovely that programme was.

Love-hate

I have a love-hate relationship with essays.

• I love planning them.
• I hate writing them.
• I love editing them.
• I love submitting them.
• I hate waiting for them to come back.
• I hate referencing them.
• I love reading for them.
• I love the ordered chaos around my desk as they are written.
• I hate typing them up.
• I love rubbing in hand cream as I pause for thought mid-sentence.
• I hate losing my train of thought and grinding to a halt.
• I love that carefree feeling once they are handed in.

My desk - and surrounds - this weekend