Weekend life

Well you are supposed to relax and enjoy your weekend off, I however managed to get landed with being on call for work this weekend for the division which I have now technically left. This basically means that should something nasty happen to the people of Scotland I will be one of a specialized team of individuals to be called out to help get things sorted! I also managed to land the honour of being the TEAM LEADER!!!! for the whole weekend, so should anyone have any questions of queries about the team they contact me. I was planning to have a quiet relaxing weekend with a couple of friends (Mr R Bull and Mr P Smirnoff) but because of the "On-call" I couldn't, I did however manage to see my bf this weekend and it was lovely, we had a nice chinese take away, chilled out with my flat mate and her friend and spent a lovely relaxing Sunday afternoon going for walks and drives in the country and then finishing the day off with a lovely coffee and cake moment in a very nice, modern bar/restaurant/hotel. The only thing I hate about weekends is that they finish so quickly, especially a Sunday, it reminds me of being at school and thinking "Yes it is Friday, time to party", then suddenly wakening up and finding out it is Sunday and you have not done anything you had planned and were due back at school the next day and had not even looked at your books/homework etc etc Oh well at least I am on nights tomorrow so I get a longish lie in bed (unless the bloody mobile phone goes for a callout!)

Family Gatherings

Well there I was, stressing about my parents forthcoming 40th Wedding Anniversary as it was going to be the first time that my bf had met most of my extended family. Well the night before the party I was going out for a meal with my bf and some of his work colleagues, but prior to this I was to pick up some of my dad's side of the family and deposit them at my folks house. I collected my bf and then swung past the hotel where the relatives were staying and collected them, only to be met by this wee woman saying that she was expecting my father to have collected them and thought that both my parents would be going to the hotel for a drink, so they had just gone to the bar to buy a round of drinks...."Oh god" I thought I only have 25 minutes to get you to my parents house and then back into town with my bf to meet up with his colleagues. I explained that I was going to move the car so I was not blocking the entrance, came back out and said to my bf that there may be a slight delay and could we go in. After managing to get the relatives out of the bar we sped (keeping to the limit) to my parents house so that I could introduce my sister and her family to my bf along with my uncle and his wife who were already at my parents place. It was an interesting conversation en route to my folks house and then again once we had arrived. We said our hello's and hi's and then headed back into town and I promised to be back early the next day to collect my sister and auntie to help with the shopping and decorating of the hall for the party that evening. The meal with my bf and his colleagues was lovely, it was a nice little Thai restaurant just off cockburn street, everyone was pleasant and friendly and we all enjoyed ourselves.

The next morning the chaos started, I collected my sister and we went to pick up the cake, when we arrived it was still not ready, so we went and did some other shopping and then returned for the cake, we then swung past my aunt's and collected her and headed into the hall to look at what decorations were going to be required, once we had decided what we were doing in the hall we then had to go and track down the necessary decorations, which we eventually managed to do, only to find that once we had blown up the last balloon it said "Happy 60th Anniversary"....Unfortunately it was my parent's 40th Anniversary, so we all had a moment of blind panic checking all the other balloons, but it must have been a rogue balloon as the rest all had 40th on them to our relief. After we had finished decorating the hall (which was only scheduled to take 2hrs maximum) 4 1/2hrs later we headed back to my aunt's to drop her off and collect some of the other gifts for my parent's I then dropped my sister off so that she could start getting her 3 sons ready for the evening along with her husband, herself and both my parent's I was glad I was going home to get ready even if they do have two toilets in the house!!

I sped back to my flat to collect my kilt and then headed back to my bf's to meet him and get ready, this was nice, it was relaxed and calm in his house, I almost felt like I could fall asleep, but I knew I didn't have time, we were both ready in record time and kited out in our kilts headed out the door. Upon arrival at the hotel, which I had only left 90 minutes previously, I was slightly disappointed that my parent's had arrived before us, as I wanted to make sure that they sat in the correct place etc (which they had anyway). The hall slowly started filling up with family, friends and colleagues of my parent's and the place started to have more of an atmosphere, I introduced my bf to as many people as I could during the evening, making sure that I kept him updated with who is related to who etc etc, I think at one stage he was ready just to sit in a corner and cry as it was something like this: This is SH and S, they are the son and daughter of R and B, SH is going out with D and S is married to F, now D and SA are expected soon and they are the cousins of SH and S and me, their parent's are D and S, S is the sister of my mum and R, and R is only 3yrs older than L, you got that so far??? Good right now L is married to ST, and they have 3 sons called D, M and J and it went on. God only knows how he survived, but he did and I was so happy to see that he was getting on with the people that I thought he would and relaxing as the night went on, at one stage he even managed to get me to fall for a trick played by one of my nephew's.

The evening was in my opinion a success and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I just hope that the next lot of gatherings goes as well (of which there are a few this year, my 30th, my uncle's 50th, my Dad's 60th and my sister's 40th).

Oh how I love a good party! Especially if they play cha cha slide :)

Weather

It is amazing how a little bit of snow can suddenly cause so much chaos on the roads, I am sitting here listening to the radio road reports, and it seems that ever single road in and around Edinburgh is either heavily congested or blocked by the sudden change in weather conditions, as I look out on my kitchen window all I see is white, yes it has snowed quite heavily, but with some care and attention it should still be relatively easy to get around, but oh no, not the people of east central scotland, we only have to see snow and we panic, I was chatting to my bf this morning as he is preparing to go to work (I have the day off ha ha ha) and he was slightly worried about driving in, now he comes from the Highlands and he said that if there was snow like this in his village, then the higher ground would be thicker and deeper, making driving hazardous, but this is not the Highlands, in fact, I am higher up than his work so it should be easier for him to get to work, but the rest of the people out there will probably make his journey into Edinburgh interesting.

Childrens TV programmes......

I have just received an email from a friend, it was all about childrens tv programmes of the past, check out the site, especially if you remember Rainbow
Remember to have your sound on!

Observers

I have just experienced two shifts with observers. It is common place that when you get an observer out with you the calls you attend are normally easy to handle, trivial and sometimes down right c**p.

Well this is not the case for me, on both shifts we were kept going constantly, on the second occasion with the observer, we had 10 calls in the space of 12 hrs, yes I know it is not a lot, but they were all jobs that required full focus on the patient and their situation. The night started out relatively slowly, but built up to an almost constant case of clearing and going for the next call. We were called to one of the local night clubs twice, back to back, it was interesting to see the observer becoming more confident and relaxed when arriving on scene at incidents. We then had the call that makes every observer think "YES this is the one for me" an RTA with 4 patients after a car left the road and rolled down an embankment. Upon our arrival, all 4 patients were out of the car and had relatively minor injuries compared to the mechanisms of the incident. I loved seeing the observers both thinking to themselves, wow, this is not how I imagined it would be in this division. I would be happy to have either of the two out with me observing again, especially if I am attending, as they may get to be more hands on!

Hogmanay 2004

I sit here recovering still from the Edinburgh street party. I am not long out of bed after celebrating my very own 2004 Hogmanay with one of my friends.

I was working on the 31st of December at the Street party with various other dedicated volunteers from St. Andrew's Ambulance, British Red Cross and even St. John Ambulance providing part of the event medical services to the people who had chosen to come to Edinburgh to celebrate the New Year. I had a pleasant evening in one of the 4 first aid posts for the event, and to make it even more special, I was working (not planned) with my BF (He had been designated the Social Work Vehicle First Aid Escort for my post). The evening started out quite slowly, but gradually the workload increased as did the amount of alcohol people were consuming on the streets, we had a few interesting patients, but the majority were under the influence of alcohol and suffering badly, some were even at the stage that they were found sitting in their own vomit..... :( Our job as first aiders that evening was to clean them up, patch them up and ship them out to either the event, home, hospital or pass on their care to Social Services. I often ask myself why I still volunteer when I work in the Ambulance Service, the answer is easy, I love the feeling of knowing that you have helped someone. If anyone is reading this and thinks that they could volunteer some time then go ahead and give some time, go on you will love it!

My trip North

Well I was working over Christmas, but on the 27th I was due to travel North to meet my boyfriend's parents. I made sure that the car was running ok and that I had packed enough clothes (including the emergency shirt, which my commented on) and my camera etc. I set out eventually at 12 mid day, expecting the roads to be quite bad because of the recent weather, I had an audio copy of the new Ian Rankin book to listen to whilst driving. I arrived 3 1/2 hrs later safely in Cromarty where I met my bf and his folks, now I had already met his mother, she is lovely and puts you at ease as soon as you meet here, but I was a bit worried about meeting his dad. I got out the car and thought to myself "I hope I am at the correct address" when two lads cycled passed and called out "Hi J" and I thought , yup I must be at the correct place as they think I am my bf (apparently we look quite similar....god help him!) I knocked on the door and felt my stomach twisting when it opened, I really just wanted to run away, but I missed my man so much as well. The door was answered by my bf and he invited me in and I spotted his mum immediately and strangely felt a bit more relaxed, then his dad came through and introduced himself, he is a really pleasant guy, I was not sure what I was expecting but I was made to feel at ease very quickly, The rest of the time up north I was "Dragged" around to meet various friends, some who I took to more than others. I enjoyed my time up north, it was a beautiful place to be, nice crisp weather, fresh air and stunning views, I did have a moment of panic however, we were visiting some of my bf's friends and they were discussing various things and I heard "Yeah but you would have to move back here, you couldn't do it in Edinburgh" I thought to myself "Oh my god I am loosing him already, we have not even had a fight and he is thinking about moving north and leaving me!!!!" Oh well I will have to wait and see if it comes true... I hope not :(