.......and finally a little levity

With personal illness and international world news...Saturday has been all a bit glum has it not?
So I shall leave you with this
A short video
Mary versus Winnie
" The fight over the grey elephant continues"

Vive La France

Fraternite

The Sick Bed

This is the scene this morning.
My sick bed. Complete with William, George , Albert and Winnie.
I feel weak as an old lady's fart but certainly am better than I was as my temperature is down and my insides are now remaining inside me rather than escaping into the toilet bowl like water down a drain pipe.
The Prof has coped remarkably well given the circumstances.
He has sorted out the field animals, toileted Mary with exasperated patience and has washed my unpleasant underwear without complaint.
I do have the feeling, though, that he has had enough of the old nursing thing as the last time he 'popped" in the old thermometer, he did so with rather too much force.( and before Tom says anything it was an oral thermometer!)

Seriously though, I have been thinking that we take our health too much for granted. The knock on effect when sudden or even chronic illness takes hold can be vast and devastating especially when responsibilities have to be met and work completed.
Luckily I have had the opportunity to stay in bed  ( a short gallop away from the loo) but without The Prof that couldn't have been possible.
It worries me that both of us are getting older...
..and health generally favours the young.......

The Elephant's Lost Squeak

This is how I feel today.
After Mrs Trellis so thoughtfully give this small creature to Mary , Winnie  had made it her mission to kidnap and destroy the little squeaking elephant .  So much so is that yesterday she rocked the fridge freezer upon which it had been safely placed that a large tin of flour, a mixing bowl and a bottle of beer came smashing to the ground along side the bloody elephant.
It was de squeaked in seconds.
Now i look like it. For around 3 am I came down with a horrendous bout of D&V.
Since then I have worked my way through 2 pairs of pyjama bottoms and four pair of underpants.
I have a temperature and cant eat.
I feel like shit...as I was booked for overtime tonight
And I look and feel like this fucked up elephant
Hey ho....back to sleep

Poo on a finger

Children notice everything.
We had just bathed and towel dried Mary and placed her back into her crate when Eve noticed a big blob of curry sauce on the oven glove which was looped over the oven door handle .
" Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhh! " she called out rather theatrically " Wot's that?"
I made a show of sniffing the brown lump and told both girls that I thought it " smelt of poo"
Suddenly I had both girl's rapt attention
I poked the lump with my finger and lifted it to my nose
" yes it's poo!" I announced and as  the girls looked on with surprised frowns
I popped my finger into my mouth
Screaming filled the kitchen.

Late in life , I have learnt the lesson that children love and need silliness.
And the " smuttier" and " dirtier" the silly activity...the happier they become.
Unfortunately I don' t recall my parents ever being silly.
When I picked the girls up from school yesterday afternoon, Eve asked if we could " smash the apples again" ....as " it was fun" We had picked apples from the orchard and had jumped on the soft apples with our shoes so that the geese could feed on the bits the last time they came around after school.

Last night , when affable despot Jason arrived to pick his girls up , he was faced with suddenly dipped curried digits  and shouts of "Dad!  I have poo on my finger" , and like all experienced parents he smiled a patient smile .
I covered the fingerholes before I replaced the curry in the oven.

The Prof never noticed a thing.


Wha's your " silly with kids" story?

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Postscript

on my way though the village , I noticed the membersof the village frindship group getting on the bus  
For a day trip out. Further up high street I bumped into Gwyneth in her electric wheelchair. She had a small Welsh terrier in tow. We gossiped that the house with the bin bagged windows now has roller blinds!
Standards appear to be rising I thought.

Armistice Day

O

Anatevka

The Ukrainian Village looks somewhat deserted.
I think it resembles the forlorn  Anatevka at the end of " Fiddler On The Roof"
The once busy " roads" and " avenues" are quiet and empty.

The problem with buying in batches of hens is that they tend to stop laying and will die away more or less at the same time. A couple of years ago I took in forty chickens from a guy in nearby Llanasa, whose wife told him " It's either me or the hens" ..he chose his wife....(but only after an afternoons self debate), and the Ukrainian Village was suddenly bursting at the seams.
Over the last twelve months all these older hens have gently died away, as did old Bingley the turkey

And so there are only twelve animals on the field to face the winter.
Four hens. Four geese and Irene and Sylvia.
Of course, this hiatus will now allow me to dismantle and burn the flimsier hen houses and repair the good. Over the winter these all will be fumigated and cleaned in readiness for the new hens which will come in the spring.
" Bosoms" will need clearing too, with getting married in the spring, the allotment had been over looked this year.

I'm picking up Liv and Eve from school today and briefly thought that I would get them painting the first of the hen houses this afternoon but the weather isn't quite up to it.
I will teach them to prepare a curry for the Prof's tea instead...after they give Mary her first bath.
It should be an interesting bun fight

Celebrating Practice

My old friend and colleague David Ash ( centre) with the staff of the Spinal Injury Unit Sheffield

I work for a health board which is in " special measures"
This is not the place to discuss such matters, but suffice to say that for a variety of reasons, I am , unfortunately ashamed of the place that employs me.
Of course at times like these, good practice and excellent care can sometimes be overlooked . Especially when morale is low and policies and proceedures overwhelm Workers on the shop floor.
I 'll share with you a short story.
A few weeks ago , I took handover from a fairly -new-to-ITC nurse called Caroline.
It was Caroline's last shift on intensive care and her handover was detailed and precise. Every aspect of her patient's care had been completed to a high standard. The family had been supported and given appropriate information and the patient had been washed with a diligent care   , with the myriad of lines and ivs all neatly labelled and organised. Caroline had done a good job on her busy day shift and I told her so.
When morale is low in a Hospital trust , positive feedback is sometimes the first thing to go missing I always think

Yesterday, I received some feedback for some ' basic' nursing care , I gave over a decade ago and it came out of the blue.
On facebook, I read an entry celebrating the work of one of my colleagues from the Sheffield Spinal Injury Unit who had recently retired.
Illustrating the entry was a group photo of the present day nursing and medical staff and I left a bright a breezy comment wishing my old colleague well and commenting that I only recognised a few " old faces"
A former patient from the unit commented on my comment. He wrote

Pete *" I remember you John, I think, were you not in charge of Osbourne 1, and was planning on moving to Wales, if so then I remember you well, you took the time to wash my hair for me, after a month of being in ICU, I will never forget the feeling of the warm water running over my head, simple things hey, but that I am so grateful for.

I was incredibly moved that this guy had remembered this tiny bit of essential but ever so simple piece of care after ten years and I was reminded that time and time and time again, I witness such unsung moments at my place of work . Moments that will be remembered but perhaps overlooked in
this climate of " special measures"
So all of us, but especially to the managers who have to firefight on a daily basis.
Take a minute to praise those small vital moments of nursing care