Digest Seven

Yeah, I'm still not very good at this. Seven weeks down the line and I've posted... two?... on time?
Cue: excuses
Week 5, I literally had nothing worth posting. Nothing. I can't believe I'd been so unproductive for the entire week. Not even any nice photographs.
Week 6? I was on-call on my posting stuff day. Yeah. I have nothing more. (I luckily didn't get called out in the evening - one ward phoned me about eye-drops, but I think they managed to get family to bring them in?)

Writing:
All right, so, my plan to get back into writing didn't work as well as I'd hoped it would - that spreadsheet I designed, to help me track how much I'm writing? Yeah; barely touched it in January, not even opened it in February. I think I'm just so brain-tired when I get in from work, of an evening, especially when I've been looking after trainees, that the last thing I want to do is get back behind a computer and stare at a screen some more. :( But it makes me sad, to not be writing. Maybe when the weather improves, and I don't feel like curling up and hibernating when I get in from work, my ability to write will also get better!

I do have a chapter close to being finished. I really really want to finish it this week. *crosses fingers!*

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Art:

I managed to figure out some of my mandalas! And finally figured out where to punch the holes for the sun mandala that I'd been looking at forever. In celebration (which was almost terminated early due to injury*), I stitched it on the cover of a plain white ring-binder, which I've been using to store embroidery floss. The part where I stitched between two threads - circled - is now bothering me... and I'm not so satisfied with how simple it is, so I'm going to have to break out the polar graph paper (basically, graph paper that's circular) and start to plot a fresh one. (Click the photographs to enlarge them.)

(* = the plastic head of a pin fell off as I was making the holes in the folder, and the blunt bit went into my thumb. Ouch.)

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Photographs
The day after my on-call was the most beautiful foggy morning! (And no more out-of-hours calls after that one about the eye drops. And since it's half-term, it's a lovely peaceful bus with no shrieking kids "terribly mature" barely-teens trying to one-up each other.)

As the bus passed the restaurants at the entrance to Ravenswood, the scrubby heath in the distance was covered in a carpet of mist, barely a couple of metres deep. So, I got off the bus a few stops early, hoping it'd be as misty on the golf-course / heath opposite, so I could take some pictures. Click the photographs to enlarge them.

        

More mysterious images. On Friday, about 4pm, I noticed smoke rising in the distance. I was hoping to find out what it was in the newspaper, but there was nothing. According to the Suffolk Fire and Rescue Facebook Page, "there are no items of a newsworthy nature to report at this time." Maybe it was just a bonfire?


I love trying new things. I think that's part of the reason I have such a Love-Hate relationship with Holland & Barrett. Hate, because please stop telling people [any of a million weird, possibly-unsafe herbal remedies] is totes fine! with their medicine when you don't actually have a clue. Love, because they have some weird and wonderful health food type snacks that always pique my curiosity, like this weird little blob of nuts I spotted on the tills when buying stuff for soups the other day. It was actually quite nice - crunchier than I thought it would be, with a sort of flapjack-y maltiness. I don't always enjoy my purchases - the "fruit jerky" they sell is pretty rough - but I might just buy this one again.


Over the last week, I decided that my poor walking boots have basically had it. They didn't last anywhere near as long as my last pair, which my parents bought me in Scotland, lasted all through Uni, and then some. So, I treated myself to a new pair on the weekend. They're Gore-tex, and they're teal. Woo! :D


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Strange:
The wonder of the expiry date:
I was checking PODs ("Patient's Own Drugs") on the ward in preparation for someone going home, ensuring he had enough etc., when I came upon this pot of aspirin. I gave it a shake, and it didn't rattle, so I guessed it must be empty? Except it felt quite heavy, so, I opened it.

Barf. This is why we have expiry dates. (I still don't know what is wrong with it. I'm thinking, maybe it's cotton wool? And it's got damp, so... actually, no. I have no idea.) Needless to say, it got filed.

Then I found this:

I was (mostly) with them until "startight", then I got confused. I'm usually pretty good at interpreting the uninterpretable, but this has me foxed.

Lastly: Dear Facebook. I mentioned a few days ago that "at last, Facebook has stopped asking me if I know Rebecca Stuart". That was clearly tempting fate, because what did I find in my email inbox the next night? Yep.

Please, Facebook. Get a "no" button, or something? I probably still won't know who Rebecca Stuart is if you ask me again next month.

And lastly, I saw this on Tumblr. I... have no idea. Seriously. What.

"" (Watch on YouTube)