I'm currently leading a quieter life than usual. A lack of funds and a week spent on the slimfast diet means no pubs and certainly no riproaring social whirl. All good healthy living and lots more walking for the very happy pooch. Healthy living is incredibly boring though but I have no desire to smoke, use drugs and if I party all night I pay the price over the following two days. Sadly my age is catching up with me. Gardening, tea and biscuits, reading, etc...are my preferred choices nowadays if I don't want to feel like I have been reamed out with a six foot cotton bud.
I used to try and imagine when I was sixteen what I would be doing in the years 2000 and 2010. It wasn't any of the 'Tomorrows World' predictions of moonbase living and eating pills for a square meal. I have to be honest if anyone had told me I would be a nurse living in Lincolnshire I'd have laughed. At that age my thoughts didn't go beyond the next week and were primarily focused upon girls and music, mainly upon one young Greek Cypriot girl whose family intervened once they realised we liked each other. Young love might climb mountains and swim oceans but it stops at the immovable object of a stern father and his sons. Truth to tell I was a generally typical sixteen year old boy....absolutely clueless about what I wanted to do. My fathers generation worked on the land or emigrated because they did not have the luxury of considering what to do next. I was lucky in that regard but I do worry about my son who is sixteen and what awaits him. He is at college but he's desperate for some work so he can earn his own money. Sadly, the unemployed eighteen year olds and older are struggling to find work let alone a kid straight out of school. He's talking about joining the RAF next year once he has completed his college course so that he may learn a trade there. We'll see what happens...several months isn't that long but to a teenager it's a lifetime!
TTFN.

I finally got a suspicious looking mole checked out by the doc. It grew from a tiny speck on my knee fourteen months ago into something 'large' and noticeable. GP not too concerned although he did offer me the choice of surgery to remove & biopsy it or to return in three months for a further check up. I opted for the latter & we'll see how it goes. I'm not too worried because it doesn't hurt or cause me any problems but I'll keep an eye on it. Better safe than sorry...I remember seeing a window advert in Market Rasen for a mole killer years ago. I knew then I was no longer in Kansas London where lurchers, rabbits, foxes, moles, ferrets and horses don't play a big part in daily life unless the lurcher is on a string attached to a crustie! Moles look to me like cute little fellas but then perfect lawns do not figure large in my life.
TTFN.

Rather than add my voice to the cacophony of opinions about the move to all graduate entry into nursing from the year 2013, please follow the link (copy & paste)...

http://militantmedicalnurse.blogspot.com/2009/04/research-into-survival-rates-of.html

I trained under the very old system (Jurassic) during the 1980's and acquired over the past twenty plus years a lot of experience and a pile of qualifications to make a bonfire with. It's odd but I haven't yet finished my degree although one more course with the OU will address that need. But I have studied at post grad level and I have also earned credits at that level in a number of courses. I deemed it necessary to expand my knowledge base, inform my clinical practice and to add power to my oft needed discussions with other clinicians. It also ensured my current practice remains current as well as keeping me head and shoulders above the degree nurses coming through. Sadly, many years ago there was one degree educated nurse who with little experience believed she knew best and did not take it very kindly when an experienced nurse sans degree out manoeuvred her to ensure a client's rights were protected and upheld. Highly educated middle-class inexperienced twonk believed she knew best rather than listening to and engaging with the client. One experience only and not necessarily representative of degree educated nurses as a whole.
A degree and a caring attitude are not contradictory but the entry to degree education only may stop poorer people entering the profession. The diploma education attracts a bursery of approimately £7k per year; degree level education attracts a lot less and more debts. I would be happier with the current system continuing and for those qualified nurses who want to train up to degree level and beyond can continue to do so. As for all the comments I have read on other blogs, newspaper and other media sites....a hell of a lot of experts in nursing out there who believe an in depth knowledge of Carry On films and Casualty makes their opinion right.
TTFN.

N.b. I just found this article....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6914903.ece

Animals in:1,2,3...4...Check.
Music turned up: Check.
Windows shut: Check.
Treats: Check.
Yep, it's that time of year where we commemorate the attempted Stuart style referendum of parliament via black powder and a swan vesta. I'm sure were Mr Fawkes to try it today he would have no end of offers to keep an eye out for the rozzers and he would be inundated with matches, lighters, sparklers, candles, timers, etc...I hope someone is carefully watching our politicians because an extra 'guy' on the woodpile would not go amiss until it's too late.


















Quiz night and I am hoping for questions regarding the 5th November plot as opposed to where are the x-factor twins from. The latter answer is 'Fucked if I know or care'. Mind you, only a few of us turned up last week so it might be the same tonight. A few beers, conversation and music in an almost empty pub. Fingers crossed for a better crowd tonight.
TTFN.

A colleague at work introduced me to this animation. I'll let you make your own mind up as to its merits but several of us are convinced it shows an incredible imagination but also illustrates the experience of psychosis. This episode is mild but the others become progressively more disturbing.



A busy two days covering both jobs so I am glad to sit, sip a beer and enjoy spotify: Jethro Tull is the current music of choice. The pooch walked and paddled with the added bonus of no fireworks although a brief confrontation with the swans. All rather one sided as she ignores them because they are large and she can only chase pigeons and ducks, coward that she is. However, I'll have to limit the walks to the mornings for the next few days until the town is hopefully firework free.
Last week involved three nights out at the Tap with Saturday night being hugely enjoyable. The band played seventies punk covers with an especially fine rendition of Penetration. It brought back memories of small sweaty pubs in Camden and Islington with lots of alcohol, noise and life in the raw. Sadly I still can't recall many of the bands I saw although I imagine most of them disappeared fairly quickly. It's a short step to 'five pints, a bag of chips and bus fare home and all from a quid' through my rose coloured spectacles if I continue in this vein.
TTFN.

Look...like buses you wait for ages and then two posts come together!













It should have been a longer post but I wanted to get the shopping done which included hair colour and fake blood.I still have to pop out and buy Mrs C. a card & present for her birthday tomorrow. What does she want?...I have no idea. Sadly, it will be cheap and cheerful because she's still unemployed and No.1 son who attends college for two days a week can't find any work. Ho hum, I can't complain because I am still gainfully employed and kept extremely busy at both jobs. The good news is that finally my efforts may be about to pay off and the service manager was singing my praises the other day in connection with another possible secondment. The only downside to it is that it again involves a lot of travelling, another 100 mile round trip commute plus mileage as I perform community visits on top. It is another of these 'fire brigade' jobs where government and NHS policies combine to change services and oops! Where did that great big gaping hole appear with vulnerable clients plummeting through it? Meanwhile, underemployed clueless numpties have been promoted into positions for which they lack experience and commonsense. Amer, moi? Naturellement.* Mainly because I see standards slipping and patients left struggling because of clueless morons who do not comprehend how useless they really are. The job will be several months of plugging the gaps and inevitably dealing with the difficult patients whom other services avoid. The ones I inevitably like which says what a strange fellow I am. Sigh...I am a grumpy old sod tho' and perhaps this is the way of the world as one gets older. Anyhow, the post is not available until next year so I can concentrate on the here and now.
I am no nearer to deciding what present I should buy Mrs.C and perhaps I just need to take a stroll around the town centre. Joy unbounded...crowds and I have no idea what I am looking for. A recipe for disaster.
TTFN.

*Yes I know it should be 'amer je?', but we are talking Franglais here.

Happy Samhain!

We'll be mixing with the witches, vampires, ghosts and ghoulies tonight. Yep, fancy dress at the Tap. Who knows, as we are celebrating perhaps the odd spirit might drop in to sample the warmth and conviviality of the evening as the veil twixt this world and the next is at its thinnest. As long as they get a round in...
TTFN.