Swollen and bruised

Munich, December 2019

The main thing that is preoccupying my thoughts is the stupid front door. Despite Ilf's attentions it swelled up again so I had a go at shaving some more off - there won't be much door left once it gets dry again. Having had enough of this game I gave Doors and Windows Ulf a call and he came round to talk about replacing it with one that a) won't swell b) won't need repainting c) will fit better and reduce drafts and d) will be more secure. So I know a bit more about different types of door than I did before (timber, uPVC and composite) but have still received no quote at the time of writing.

The same swelling problem has happened to the timber side gate, so the new Lady Gardener had a bit of trouble with that. Yes, I've got a new Lady Gardener! She spent two hours weeding and while she was working I finished the brick border and we talked about how she's not a teacher any more, and what I should do about my herbs. I think it will go well.

And the eighth Gulloebl Film Festival took place and was a success as ever, although I had a bit of a problem with some of the films on Saturday, which were Blades of Glory (not my kind of humour), The Apartment (a classic movie which is unfortunately so full of sexism, misogyny and let's call it 'an old-fashioned view of a woman's place in the workplace and relationships' with just a touch of racism at the end that I didn't enjoy it as much as I should if I had ignored all those things and just imagined myself back in 1960), and Sexy Beast (which made me so tense that my jaw ached). All the other films were lovely, though, with my favourite (aside from my all time favourite Marvellous) being The Sting.

On Wednesday I had a Ladies badminton match, and Thursday night was a match for the Mixed team, and before it even started while I was warming up I tripped and had an enormous comedy fall, bouncing off the wall and landing on my side. I was fine apart from a grazed knuckle and a huge bruise on my hip. I'm glad I'm still tough enough to bounce rather than break. And we won both matches, so I suppose it was worth it.

Catching up

February 2020

Since my last post I've been off skiing for a week in France, and then come back to a punishing schedule of having to go to work for three days, two evenings of Buddhist activity, meeting up with Lola II for a day trip to Oxford, a replacement filling in a back tooth, and a weekend with sister D.

The skiing was with lovely friends and we all had a good time even though we lost out on one day because of bad weather. I travelled over on the Eurostar overnight ski train which means I had two nights of no sleep but a full eight days of skiing. The return trip coincided with Storm Ciara and trains back home from London were terribly disrupted. Instead of a straightforward 2 hours to Leamington it took more than 4 hours and the last leg was from Coventry on a bus, which I had to direct to the station because there was a closed road and a diversion, presumably due to fallen debris.

A recent casualty of the rain has been my front door, which has been performing its annual trick of swelling in the wet weather. It had got so bad before I went away that in order to secure the house I had to force it shut from the inside and then leave the house through the garage. I had a go at shaving it down when I got back but in the end gave in and called the trusty Ilf, who came round the same day and sorted it out. I'm seriously considering getting an alternative and less temperamental front door.

At work I'm finding it quite difficult to fit in everything that I'm required to do in under two days a week, and going away for a week makes it even more difficult. However, I have discovered that one of my Diabetes Dietitian colleagues has been asked to stand in for our Team Leader, which is a welcome development as she is pretty much doing that job anyway and is very competent and nice to work with. Advertising and appointing officially to the post has been delayed because the factors that led to the resignation of the previous two incumbents are still in place, but this may be changing over the next six months as three key members of staff are leaving. The other Diabetes Dietitian who has been off sick for about seven months shows no sign of returning to work, so we are still short of two people.

One of the extra jobs that we are all supposed to do is to supervise student Dietitians on their placements with us. Being part time and not based on the main site I have got away with not doing as much supervising as some others, but I found my name on a list of such people who were being asked to do a bit more. So I stepped up and volunteered to supervise a Peer Assisted Learning activity about biochemistry, i.e. the results of blood tests and how they impact on a Dietitian's role.

I had to go over to the main hospital where the four students were waiting. Their task was to find out all the reference ranges for lots of different factors - electrolytes, liver enzymes, blood components and much more - and then consider two ward-based case studies. The difficulty for me was that I hardly ever have to review biochemistry results except for those connected with diabetes, and the case studies were nothing to do with diabetes. So I'd already had to spend some time with one of the other Dietitians to go through the case studies and make sure I knew the answers myself. But it was fine, I'm one step ahead of them and they believe I know more than they do so that's all it takes.

What else? A big meeting at work that went quite well. A lovely day in Oxford with Lola II, even though the restaurant we wanted to have lunch at was closed and the film we wanted to see was sold out. The weekend with Sister D was good too, even though the weather was not. A proposed walk with the Buddhists coincided with Storm Dennis so nobody turned up except the regular team, and we swiftly retreated to a cafe out of the rain and wind. We held an impromptu team meeting and got quite a bit done in the hour we spent in the cafe.

I still don't feel like I've quite caught up with everything that needs to be done since being away for a week, but I need to remember that catching up with everything that needs to be done isn't always necessary. A surprising number of things can actually wait until I get round to them. All aboard the next week's rollercoaster!