A Restorative Grape

Yesterday I had bit of a black dog day. Nothing major caused it. A few niggling irritations. An unthinking  comment. Too little sleep. Torrential rail and thunder storms, whatever it was, it's all gone now, washed away by an afternoon scrubbing muddy dog prints from the kitchen floor and a therapeutic ten minutes feeding black grapes to a dying hen.

There is something strangely wonderful when you see a little scrap of an animal closing it's eyes with obvious pleasure when it's eating something it desperately wants and needs
Chris has always commented that I am abit of a " feeder".
Anyhow I slept solidly for over nine hours  last night and I feel better for that too, though my head does feel a little like a massive  cotton wool ball
The dying hen is bright eyed and waiting for her grapes this morning, so I'll buy her and chris a punnet each when I go to town.
I'll get  him something nice  for supper too. He walked the dogs for me this  morning without being asked
I must have looked too buggered to be woken up.

Hey ho



Me me me me me!

Every day should have a little sunshine

A Good Nurse

In the Uk nurses have a governing body. It's called the NMC ( Nursing & Midwifery Council). All trained nurses have to be registered with the NMC and if they break it's code of conduct, then they are liable to disciplinary action  and potentially may be removed from the nursing register, in some cases for life.
Everything has to be transparent nowadays, and the NMC is no different. Every month, on it's website it publishes the names of 150 or so nurses who are being investigated for breaking the code of professional conduct. The reasons for these hearings are many and varied, and synopsis of these are also outlined succinctly on the site alongside any disciplinary action taken, but every month scores of names extend an already worrying long list, and every month scores of nurses are removed from the register http://www.nmc-uk.org/Hearings/Hearings-and-outcomes/
Have a look at  the list. It makes for a  sobering read.

As a nurse manager, I have been involved in investigating and disciplining trained nurses and it is not a pleasant experience. A good ward manager should know their staff inside and out, so should preempt many problems before they become potentially catastrophic, but with pressures on senior nurses set to increase, could it be possible that more bad nurses seep into the system?
Who knows....

When I was a student nurse, our old tutor Mr Brint, used to hammer home his mantra for being  trained nurse
"Stick to the code of conduct......Be safe..........treat everyone as you would like to be treated and breath through your mouth when dealing with unpleasant body fluids"
It was very good advice.

I am on duty at the hospital again tonight, and I know on ITU I will be witness to some outstanding nursing care. Nursing Care  which so often will be dumbed down by the nurses themselves .
Oh I don't mean the technical stuff, like setting up the haemofiltration machine or sorting out a particularly troublesome procedure ...as impressive as these things are, it is those little  extra" basic" things that makes a good nurse...... A cool flannel on a flushed face. a right word at a difficult time, a small kindness to a relative.... I see these things everyday I am at work.....

The NMC hearing website will continue to worry. Nursing has taken an awful battering recently too......
I just wish that, we strive for some balance in the whole " bad nurse" debate ......that's all
If you read the Daily Mail, listen to the news and read the NMC website.....you would be forgiven to think that the entire nhs is staffed by drunken yob psychopaths

Angry Men

You can't " me" but I am second from the left...I effin know...there's only 11

It's my best friend Nu's birthday soon and I wanted to get her a pressie with a bit of a kick ( I am sick of sending her nice flowers)....so I got all stuck in with mr google and have just booked her ( and me) two tickets to the west end production of Twelve Angry Men just BEFORE IT CLOSES... It's a cracker of a movie if you remember

I will get down to London around 6 pm. Meet her for a cocktail the off to Angry men we'll go.......

If I was ever picked for a jury ...I am oh so wanting to be Henry Fonda............juror 8

However I am more likely to be the juror 6

Look him up if you can't remember

I can't wait 

Fat Feet In The Sunshine

The last time I actually sat down to read in the sunshine was in Sitges a few years ago now. We never seem to have the time, or the weather to do it here.
This afternoon, we bought bedding plants  for the front garden but it was far too hot to put them out, so we all ( Chris, dogs and Albert) arranged ourselves io the grass for some serious relaxation.
While Chris played with his iPad , I sipped homemade lime-ade and got tucked into Agnes Keith's Three Came Home, an  account of the writer's internment in a Japanese Prisoner of war camp during world war 2.  ( I didn't feel like anything too frothy)
I fell asleep seconds after taking this photo of my fat feet. It's the first time they have had an airing this year, so I was mildly excited to see them again.

I woke myself up just before four o'clock, snoring like a pig. I had been dribbling too, all over my second best  Walking Dead  T shirt. I am such a catch.
The eggs need collecting, and Chris wants a hand to light the new barbecue ( I won't get involved for fear of a domestic incident) but I just cannot be arsed moving.
I have that " just woken up on the beach" feeling you get when abroad.

Of course I did get up briefly, that was because Auntie Glad has just popped around with 12 scones in a bag.She didn't stop, she looked hot and bothered by the sun....it's a good walk from her house to ours, but she was as good natured as she always is.
" what do you think of the new colour of the flower Show Raffle Tickets?" She asked with a snort
" we've never had green ones before!"
I told her that I quite liked the green
" I don't' " she trilled away" but i can't see them anyway so it doesn't matter"
After she left, I sat there in the sun, contemplating my fat feet whilst munching on a scone
It feels as though I am on holiday

I have always depended on the kindness of strangers

hot hens

Its 18 degrees here in Trelawnyd but it feels hotter/The hens started to sunbathe against the church wall but now have all taken themselves off to the field borders to sleep in the shade. I have strimmed the long grass and nettles until the strimmer ran out of petrol. and now am just about to clear up. The dogs have been taken back inside the cottage to cool down and Winifred especially is in need of a lie down with a cold drink and a lace hankie
Bulldogs cannot cope with heat of any sort...they resemble Blanche DuBois when the sun's out
and go all limp and pathetic

Winnie this afternoon

Anyhow, as i have been working, I have been listening to the film composer John William's lesser well know pieces. This one is particularly good. Its a reprise of the hymn LOOK DOWN LORD which Williams used in the film ROSEWOOD (1997)
it has a wonderful power about it

I had no idea that whole towns were attacked in racially motivated mob riots in the deep South USA

Apparently Rosewood was a primarily black town in Florida that was abandoned in 1923 after several hundred whites attacked it burning most of the houses to the ground

The hymn takes on more poignancy given the reality of the story

Trelawnyd In The Sun

It's been a day for being outside....
I took a few photos and a video Inbetween selling eggs and meeting fellow villagers
Had nice conversations with John F, Pat the animal helper, Stan from Bron Haul, Ralph the gentleman farmer, (who told me off for my overgrown nettles )and Islwyn who was cutting the graveyard grass.
Val and Peter promised me some bric a brac for Auntie Glad's stall in the Flower Show ....(they do a better class of bric a brac)........they were clearing out their shed when I passed!

Arfon ( from Pen Y Cefn Isa) stopped for a chat when I took the dogs out for their first walk of the day, but I was too tired to understand or remember what he was saying.. I even saw Bridget  from well street and her family when I went to Tescos to do the shop this evening

Pat found out that Trevor ( who lives behind us) is 90 on Monday
Trelawnyd-ers please note

The church has never looked so fine

Ceanothus in the garden

I sent this video  of our garden to Tom ( hippo)

I think he must be missing African green

Give Me A Soldier Any Day

Today, I noticed with some astonishment that Hippo ( http://hippo-on-the-lawn.blogspot.co.uk)
has now bluffed his poor Filipino nurses into allowing him to change his own vacuum thigh dressings. I may be astonished, but I can't say that I was surprised. I have nursed ex service men before, so I know only too well just how " gung ho", and humorously brave they can be.
If a rule does not make sense to them, it is there to be broken
Simples
Soldiers can be exasperating and they can be challenging ( the constraints of nhs protocols can drive them batty) but in general they are a dream to work with in a rehabilitation setting, as most are disciplined, focused, adaptable and in the officers cases, generally bright.
Soldiers also employ and enjoy " gallows" humour at every difficult turn and as we all know nurses love black humour
Especially in rehabilitation settings
I am reminded of one such officer / patient called Neil. He had suffered catastrophic injuries following a motorbike accident and was admitted to us for specialist treatment before he was due to be transferred to the army rehab facility at  Headley Court in Surrey.
He was confined to bed rest for over five months as I recall, and suffered set back after set back before starting to mobilise in a wheelchair for a frugal one hour, twice a day.
After so long , what did he do when he got up?
Did he wheel himself to the physiotherapy gym perhaps? Or Did he go out on the ward veranda for a ciggie and a moment in the sun? Well in the end he did both, but not before taking himself off to another ward bay to " have a chat " with a young man, who was also on bed rest.
I asked another nurse what was the brief meeting was all about
And I caught her laughing
Apparently many weeks before Neil had overheard the young man racially berating  one of the African nurses on duty and he wheeled himself up " to have a quiet word about it "so to speak.
No shouting.
No fuss
No " feeling sorry for himself" even though he was obviously in a great deal of pain after 20 weeks flat on his back
Just a word in the " shell like"
Yes, I'd nurse a soldier any day  of the week.

Sheffield's Spinal Injury Unit