Well looked after

Friends old and new came out to the pub with me and we laughed, chatted and drank for hours.  Olivia drew me pictures and baked me a cake.  Cam let me have control over the TV remote so I could watch endless Glastonbury and athletics. My Mum and Dad phoned me at breakfast time for a chat.  Graham roasted a chicken and baked pommes dauphinoise.  The sun even shone for me.  It has been a great birthday weekend, and I have been very well looked after.
   

10 things

Bertha

• Bertha is broody.  Whoever opens the eglu door gets treated to a display of her inflating herself like a pufferfish, and shouting irritably at us.  
• I went to Kew and took dozens of photos of roses, as I do every year.  They smelled incredible - I wish there was some way to replicate precisely that smell of rose.  There isn't, but Crabtree & Evelyn's rose water comes pretty close.  I love this stuff and splash it around quite liberally.

• My parents have acquired some hens, which is very exciting.  My mother, and her father before her, used to keep hens when I was growing up and I am sure that is why I keep hens too.  My Grandfather kept urban hens - long before such a phrase was used - in the grounds of the rather grand vicarage in Sheffield where he and my Grandmother lived when I was small.
• I am undecided about what sort of birthday cake to make myself this weekend.  Perhaps I should ask Olivia to make one for me?  Or am I too much of a control freak about my own birthday cake?
• I start a placement with a local District Nursing team next week.  I am excited - this is going to be very different to all the hospital placements I have had so far.
• I am still loving the running.  This pastime is a keeper, for sure.
•  On Sunday, Graham ran seven 5K Parkruns in one day as part of the Parkrun Longest Day event.  He did the North East London loop, and I joined him for the last race of the day at our local parkrun on Hackney Marshes.  Graham usually runs 5K in around 20 to 21 minutes; my fastest 5K to date has been around 33 minutes, and that included some walking.  I wondered if he'd already run six 5K races whether he might be going slow enough on the seventh for me to be able to run with him for a little bit?   In the end he very sweetly offered to pace me for a 30 minute run (meaning that he ran at precisely the speed required to finish a 5K race in 30 minutes, and all I had to do was run with him).  I wasn't at all sure I could do it, but being paced (and being exhorted by Graham to "focus" and "dig deep" in rather a severe tone as we ran) made such a difference - I ran the whole thing in a time of 30 minutes and 25 seconds.  I was elated and told anybody who would listen that the experience was "harder than childbirth" - but on reflection I think that was endorphins speaking.  It wasn't really harder than childbirth.



New PB!




Red faced, after our race

• I go bright red in the face when I run.  Is this because I am unfit or just because I go bright red in the face when I run? I am unsure.
•  I have made a rhubarb crumble every week for the past three weeks.  All of us are wild about rhubarb.
• There is still a little bit of the rhubarb and peach one I made this past weekend, waiting in the fridge for my lunch today.  Sometimes I love a day at home by myself.

Another sort of morning

I wouldn't want you to think that a nurse's life is all about early mornings.  I am working Long Day shifts at the moment, which are from 7:30am to 8:30pm (or 8pm to 8am if it is a night shift).  They are certainly long, tough shifts, with a very early start - but I only have to work three shifts most weeks, so I get plenty of time off too.  I rather like this pattern of working, and it fits in well with having older children - I still feel as though I see plenty of them, and can help them with homework, chauffeur them to ballet and nag them to do chores.

On my days off it usually pans out like this:

6:30am -  Graham's alarm goes off.  He gets up, brings me a cup of tea in bed, and I start to think about waking up.

7:15am - I wake up Cam and Olivia.  They grunt at me and try to hide under their duvets.

7:30am - Cam comes downstairs, eats half a melon and some toast and then goes to watch Youtube videos of other people playing computer games.

7:45am - Olivia comes downstairs and makes her packed lunch.  She eats a bowl of yogurt and some toast, then floats around trying to find shoes, hairbrush, school cardie and her green pen.

8:00am - I feed the hens and collect three eggs from them.  I have a cup of tea and some yogurt.

8:25am - I leave to take Olivia to school by car.  Cam leaves the house about 5 minutes after us and walks to his school.

8:55am - On the way back from Olivia's school I park the car at the edge of Epping Forest and go for a 5k run.  The gorse and the broom is in full flower - so bright it hurts my eyes.  I see a heron flying overhead, and listen to the Northern Exposure version of Last Train to Lhasa on my headphones - one of my all time favourite pieces of music.

9:35am - I get home and have a long soak in the bath, accompanied by a whole pile of magazines and Radio 4.

10:00am - coffee and a croissant in the garden, followed by the rest of the day to myself.

Good times

Running race

Out of nowhere, Olivia said to me, "I want to do a Race for Life this summer".  

I was so surprised; she loves dancing and she likes swimming, but she is eloquent about her disdain for any other sporting activity.  Something about Race for Life had connected with her though.  Friends at school have done a Race for Life, there are posters all over the tube network for the ones in Central London this summer, there are TV adverts about Cancer Research and Race for Life, and I think it is something that many young women do these days almost as a rite of passage. "Oh, everyone knows about them," said Olivia breezily, when I asked her how she'd heard of Race for Life.  I knew that if Olivia was going to do it, I was going to have to do it with her.  How could I not?  I hate any sporting activity other than cycling or hiking as much as she does, but I couldn't see her Race for Life and not join in myself.

The races are usually 5K, and I had heard so many good things about the NHS Couch to 5K programme for novice runners, that I thought we should use that as a way of training for the race.  Olivia pointed out to me that she had assumed she would walk the 5K, which is completely allowed but which earned her a little lecture entitled "If something's worth doing, it's worth doing properly" (a favourite topic of mine that she has heard many times before).  At this point I think she slightly regretted telling me that she wanted to do a Race for Life.

I also wanted to finally get round to doing a Parkrun, which Graham has been doing for several years, and which Cam has also done intermittently.  Parkrun is a free, timed, 5K race against the clock which happens in parks around the world at 9am every Saturday.  Everyone is welcome, from professionals to super fast club runners to people trying to get fit (or stay fit).  Anybody, of any age, can run, and it is completely free and organised and manned by volunteers.  We decided that we would replace one of our three NHS Couch to 5K runs each week with a Parkrun.

Having just completed our first Parkrun - wobbly jelly legs but a huge sense of achievement

We've been training for four weeks now, and I can honestly say that both of us are enjoying it tremendously.  The running gets easier every time we do it, and the NHS Couch to 5K programme is so well designed - pushing us to run more, but never so much that we want to give up.  The people at our local Parkrun have been incredibly welcoming and friendly, and have given us so much support.  The regulars may be mostly fast club runners, but they remember what it's like to be a new runner, coming up to the finish line on tired, achey, slow legs.  They cheer us home!

And now we have entered our race, and have our race numbers ready to wear.  We are doing the event in Cambridge on Sunday 21st July, and are hoping to raise at least £200 for Cancer Research.  If you would like to contribute towards this very worthy cause and show your support for two ex-non-runners who are now loving the running, you can donate to our fundraising here. 
 

My first ever race number

Back home after a training run

 

Early mornings

5:20am - The first of my alarms goes off.  I have two alarms, as there is always the possibility that I sleep through one when it is that early in the morning.

5:30am - I am washed, dressed, and in the kitchen.  I switch on Radio 4 and catch the end of the shipping forecast.

5:31am - I make myself a cup of tea and put on the coffee machine.  The tea gets sipped now and the coffee goes in a flask for later.  I listen to News Briefing and stare into space for a few minutes as I listen to the soft bubble and drip of the coffee machine and the state of the world this morning.

5:35am - I start to make my packed lunch and packed supper for the day ahead.  It would be so much easier to throw money at the problem than prepare two meals at 5:35 in the morning but:
a) I am poor - I have no money to buy sandwiches 
b) I have only a half hour break and work on the 14th floor of a massive hospital...if I attempted to buy sandwiches in my lunch hour I'd be still in the queue for the till when I was due back on the ward.

So I make packed lunch and packed tea.  Both of them substantial, because I can never be entirely sure that I will get both my breaks.  If a patient suddenly deteriorates, then your half-hour supper break is not the ward sister's priority.

5:45am - Farming Today comes on the radio, and I know that I need to finish faffing around with my lunch and supper and make some breakfast.

5:50am - I don't want to eat breakfast at this time in the morning, but I make myself, because I might not get another chance to eat until 3 or 4pm, and patients don't need nurses who are delirious with hunger.  I usually have a bowl of oats and dried fruit that has been soaking in milk overnight, mixed with yogurt, and some chopped fresh fruit.

6:00am - The Today Programme starts and I need to finish up breakfast and pack my bags.  Clean uniform and my portfolio of achievement in one bag, food in another bag.

6:12am - I switch off Radio 4, am out of the door and walking to the station.

 

6:28am - I get on the train.  Standing room only.

6:50am - I arrive at the hospital and make my way up to the 14th floor.

7:15am - I am in my uniform, hair tied back, make-up on, food for the day stored in the staff fridge.  I make my way to the handover room, and start taking notes from the big whiteboard about which patient is in which bed.

7:30am - Handover from the night staff begins and I start my shift.

10 things

• The washing machine has been at the mender's for nearly two weeks now.  It comes home tomorrow.  I never appreciate a domestic appliance more than when it breaks down.
• My sister-in-law and Miss Moss Stitch will also be thankful that the machine is now fixed, as I have been borrowing their machines to keep on top of all the nursing and school uniforms that need to be kept clean.
•  The hens are all laying regularly now, and I am awash with eggs.  Pancakes, omelettes, scrambled eggs and baked eggs are all now regularly on the menu.
• I miss my nursing friends.  It's hard to see them when we're all working different shifts at different hospitals.
• Olivia made herself a cushion from the contents of my scrap basket.

• Although a tiny part of me is a little sad that she is now too old to want clothes I've made for her, a bigger part of me is delighted that she wants to sew things for herself instead.
• That's parenting all over isn't it.  The children grow up and move on but you haven't got the time or inclination to yearn for when they were younger, because their abilities and personalities flourish and grow too.  You are constantly getting to know this new, older child.
• I made a banana cake and chucked in a whole load of chocolate chips.  That was a very good impulse decision - who knew?
• I am yearning for sunshine.
• I listened to this and laughed so hard.  There are many pubs that I go to in East London which fit this description.  

Flux

The view from the hospital

With the end of my exam, came a return to hospital.  All the way through this course we alternate betwen a couple of months studying at University and a couple of months working on the wards (or in the community).  The mixture is good - we can apply the theory to practice, and we come back to University enthused to learn more about the situations we've come across at work.  We are usually given new placements each time we go back to hospital so that we get to experience many different sorts of nursing - surgical, medical, district nursing, palliative care, care of the elderly, acute and emergency nursing, specialist clinics and GPs' surgeries.  

This variety is both stimulating and also challenging.  Although I am now officially a second year student, on my third placement, and at a hospital I've worked at before, I feel brand new and rather ignorant again, as this placement is so very different from either of my previous ones.  The conditions are ones I've not come across before, there is a new team of staff to work with, and a whole new set of terminology and abbreviations to get my head around.  

On my very first day I was thrown in at the deep end: supervised and supported, but essentially giving one-to-one care to a very unwell patient for large chunks of the day because all the patients that day required a great deal of nursing care, which kept all the nurses, healthcare assistants and students relentlessly busy.  At the end of the shift (a long thirteen hours), one of the sisters smiled at me and said "if you're a nurse, you have to be able to provide good care under pressure - you did well today".   

So much of nursing is about change - there are new patients bringing unexpected challenges every single working day.  And yet your care and your technical knowledge must be consistently good and of a very high standard.  As I go through my training, I am starting to realise that it is this combination of adaptability and consistency which makes nurses so amazing.  Being good at both those things is what I am training to do.  It's hard.

As my work changes, and challenges me, I find I need to keep life at home stable and predictable.  On my days off I like that I can be with the children after school, bake bread, do some knitting and wonder what to do with my egg glut.  Things I've been doing for a long time, and that I will always do.

A golden, eggy quiche - still warm from the oven - will always make me happy

 

Exams

Revision cards - hundreds of them

I have been studying for an important exam - and in those moments where I become distracted, or weary, I gaze out of the window and remember all the other times in my life when I was preparing for, or sitting, exams.  There have been many; I seem to have chosen a path in life which has required many exams along the way.

• When I was sitting my GCSEs, I spent the morning before my English Literature paper sitting in the Oxford University Parks, kissing my boyfriend in the sunshine.  Not to the detriment of my studies though - I rocked up to school at lunchtime, sat the exam and still got an A.
• When I was studying for my A-levels I took things more seriously.  I think they still remain the exams I studied the hardest for. 
• At University I only sat exams in my final year.  Graham borrowed some of my notes to revise for the Cold War paper, and was very tardy at giving them back to me.
• A week before my University finals, I packed my little tent into my car, drove to the Norfolk coast and stayed there for a few days to revise in peace, by myself.  I lay in my tent, with the doors pegged open, reading American history textbooks and American war poems in the breezy sunshine.  I was very content and came back to campus to sit my finals with a nice suntan.
• It took me just under three years to qualify as an accountant.  During that time I sat sixteen exams, and passed them all at the first attempt, whilst working full-time as a trainee accountant.  Even though I am no longer an accountant, I am still very proud of that achievement.
• It felt a bit as if life was just one long exam at times, though.
• The tax exam was a bit too close for comfort - I got 51% and the passmark was 50%.
• During my very last accountancy exam, which I sat in Hackney Town Hall, I felt my first baby move in my belly for the first ever time.  I sat there, beaming to myself, and the invigilator quietly walked over to check if I was okay.

Now I am back at University for the second time, and sitting exams for the umpteenth time.  They don't get any easier or more pleasant, but the revision drill at least feels familiar; I know what needs to be done.  Even with all my experience of taking exams, this will be my first ever biology exam and the first time I have sat an exam in a church crypt.  

The nerves are starting to kick in.

My exam venue

Chickens and eggs

My new little hens are all settling in very well.  I have introduced new hens to the flock many times, and know that it is normally a loud and quite vicious process, but for some reason this time, the eglu and run have been very harmonious.  No shouting or bullying or pecking at all.  I am not sure why; perhaps because my older two are now very elderly - nearly 8 years old - so they are not as bothered about the arrival of three young upstarts as they would have been a few years ago.

The older ones have not been laying properly for a few years now - Maud not at all, and Queenie only intermittently. However, with the arrival of the new ones, Queenie has rediscovered her egg-laying powers and is currently giving me an egg a day.  Ethel, the young, black, maran-cross hen is also now laying every day.  Bertha and Adelaide look ready to lay, but haven't produced anything yet.

So most days, this is what is waiting for me in the nest box.

 

An enormous pale egg from Queenie, and a little dark one from Ethel.

On Saturday I used one of Ethel's little eggs to make digestive biscuits.  The recipe (from the wonderful Peyton & Byrne baking book) called for "1 small egg", so I knew immediately which one to use.  I cut the biscuits out with my chicken cookie cutter, and had a whole flock of buff-coloured chickens, cooling on my kitchen table.  I decided I wanted chocolate digestives, so I painted the chickens with melted Green & Blacks milk chocolate (thereby making them more Ethel-coloured, which was fitting).

I'd not made digestive biscuits at home before, and was delighted to find out that they are very quick and easy, and satisfyingly authentic.  It's a good job Ethel's laying regularly, because the biscuits only hung around for a couple of days. Yum!

Seen on the streets

Seen on the streets of Soho, in central London, on the first sunny Saturday afternoon of spring:

•  Hundreds of people, standing outside pubs, drinking wine and pints and turning their faces towards the sky, like sunflowers.
• Two little girls, pony-galloping up Carnaby Street doing a complicated hand-clapping game together.
• Three young dudes, zooming past on longboards.
• A pretty young lady, wrapped in a gold pashmina, photographing her boyfriend's pint of beer with the biggest Nikon camera I've ever seen.
• Three teenage girls, all wearing very high-heeled turquoise pumps, and with huge Primark bags hooked over their arms, teetering along the road singing Abba tunes together.
• Three German tourists, wondering how many millilitres were in a pint.  Nobody could tell them.
• Bubbles in my prosecco, as I enjoyed an afternoon out with some of my nursing friends.

 

Springtime in London