Hey all - thanks for the comments here and there! Hope you (ie anyone who ever looks at this) are well. I'm now well into my first week of working.. its friday at last! And the days of the week have come to mean something again! So work... its going fine. The work itself is fine - in some ways more limited than the med reception work I'd done before (only stuff in the office... phones, patients etc) so no steralising or cleaning up stuff. But we also print out the repeat prescriptions for people - it seems a bit different than the repeat system I'm used to at home. But anyway, its going ok. Some bits of the afternoon are a bit slow - like when patients stop coming in around 5:30-6 and we sit there till 6:30 having finished our evening list ages before! But that might get better - next week they are trialing us (the ones that finished at 6:30 which is 2 of us) starting 1/2 hour earlier and finishing at 6.
Also finally got most people's names sorted out now - took me a few days! I still don't know which doctor is which though - 5 drs and 6 nurses... and when someone asks for an asthma check up I'm sposed to know which of them does it!! Ah well I'll get there. Also beginning to see the dynamics within the reception bunch.. more or less a divide between the med escretary and her deputy and everyone else.. and guess who's in charge of hours/pay/duties etc.... yep the secretary! She seems nice enough so far but I guess I may meet another side when I try to arrange some holidays before Christmas... but I plan to quite not long after anyway, so if its an issue I'll quit earlier!! All good.
I'm going to Chichester tonight - south of UK to visit my cousin (give or take a generation.. if you want to be precise Mum's cousin, and Rachel who i'm living withs sister) Sarah and her partner Jeremy. Weather permitting we'll get a sail in but it its not looking good.
I'll keep you posted :)
Friday, September 30
Monday, September 26
Return of Kate
Just a quick post - i start work tomorrow, so still can't share any work place stories! However, just to let you know I am very much intending to come home leaving UK 26th of December and arriving 28th. This will leave me about 24 hours to get pumped for FALLS FESTIVAL um.. the next day! So hopefully I'll catch up with you all soon after that - for those that aren't at Falls! I really shoudl organise that flight from Melbourne to Hobart :)
Thursday, September 22
JOB
Hooray, hooray, if all goes well I shouldn't have to be making more daily visits to the Rushden (if your a local that is said Rshden) job centre! I will have to go and sign off (i think i only signed on today) for jobseekers allowance althoughi filled in so many forms and i'm still not quite sureif I'm valid or not! But I start work in a doctors surgery on monday - not as many hours as i planned on, but better pay than lots of the jobs I looked at and with a possiblity of more hours, and some flexiblity. So hopefully.. soon the pounds will be coming in! Yay. And they didn't ask how long i'll be around for so I didn't have to make anything up!
Yay
Yay
Tuesday, September 20
katespace
katespace
oops i obviosuly clicked the wrong photo - thats me making a silver ring which i had just heated up to red hot with a blog torch to melt the solder before dropping it into water... then acid... at Greenbelt. It was great fun. And this is the version i didn't cut my finger with a hacksaw.
Will do my best to put the right photo on some time!
oops i obviosuly clicked the wrong photo - thats me making a silver ring which i had just heated up to red hot with a blog torch to melt the solder before dropping it into water... then acid... at Greenbelt. It was great fun. And this is the version i didn't cut my finger with a hacksaw.
Will do my best to put the right photo on some time!
one ring to rule them all
Actually this was supposed to be a photo of my cousins, but since it seems it isn't (my fault!) I'll tell you what it really is! Its a ring I made at greenbelt - unfortuanetly not even a sharp picture! And it was glowing more red than purple really, but i did make it! And it wasn't the one i cut my finger on while making it.. that was the previous attempt!
Anyway - hopefully I will get more on here but i'm doing it 1 at a time because it keeps dying!!
Monday, September 19
View from the Fells
I spent this weekend at Jonathan's grandparents caravan in Troutbeck in the lake district - we climbed some lumps of rock called the Langdale pikes. Lovely view down to Lake Windermere from the top of this noe - not sure which of the 5 pikes it was. But after our walk/climb (we did take the adventurous route up beside a waterfall and then up some other rocky bits rather than the vague path, but it was all perfectly safe!) we arrived down at Coniston just in time for a well earned hot chocolate, giant meringue and luscious chocolate and caramel short bread slice at 'Jumping Jenny's Tea Shop'! Brilliant. Pity it took us too long to get moving from the caravan to get dinner anyway because the place we tried had just closed its kitchen when we arrived at 9pm so we had to cook with what we had! All good - tune and wensleydale cheese with cranberries, a tin of tomatoes and some pasta... hwat more could you want! I took a good 70 photos before it got to cloudy but this website is being too slow to put many more up today.
ok no photos yet!
well they aren't quite there yet.. despite it saying 'uploading images' I can't see my pictures so I don't expect anyone else can either... still working on it!
Photos attempt 2
This is the one from Jon's birthday dinner - still trying so I'm doing photos one at a time! This was before Jonathan had a unwilling haircut (which I diplomatically decidedly neither encouraged him or discouraged him from, though I think it looks nice now!!!)
Tuesday, September 6
katespace
Long time no post.
However, I am alive!!
I have has a busy few weeks. I set out on a train to Liverpool Lime St station where I met up with my friend becky from Iona last year. I stayed a few days with her - we went into Chester in the rain and also into Liverpool to look around some museums. We even had a meal at the famous (well locally anyway) Mr Chow's Chinese restaraunt! We had the full banquet, it was great!
From there on Saturday I went back to my friend Jonathan's place to stay a night before Merseyfest began the next day. We went to church on Sunday and afterwards spent a while at 'the Bank' which is the village youth project - comfy place with a pool table, bar area, table tennis etc which is a drop in centre after school in the week and venue for other bits and pieces, all run by St Mary's Church. That night and the rest of the week was spent camping in Croxteth Park in Liverpool. The general format for each day was waking up (sometimes a struggle!) then a little Bible study with our group from the bank, then heading over to the 'big top' for some music and talks. There were some good bits. Then the 1800 of us there all headed out on buses to the train stations to get various places all over Liverpool for an afternoon of work of various sorts. Most of our group went to Upton - where their church is, along with some people who'd come from near London. Another 5 of us went to a nearby project in Bidston to help clear out some paths - with a lot of rubbish along them! On the Tuesday they said the needed a volunteer to go yet another different project as a 1 off from our already separated 5 - so as one of the 2 over 18s I went. I got to go a church where they were running an even for elderly people to raise awareness of bogus house callers - accompanied by an hour of English folk music, and then serving tea and coffee and cakes! It was quite fun really - and the hardest bit was staying awake through the music! Then some old lady was trying to set me up with the good looking policeman despite me protests!!
The week went really well and it was great to spend more time with my friend Jonathan and his friends doing things for God by doing practical work for people in their communities. We got a couple of keen kids who joined in and helped us pick up rubbish over the week and had fun chatting to them and other people passing by.
From there I went straight to the Lake District to lead on a camp in Windermere. There were a few leaders I remembered from last year as well as some new ones I got to know better as the week went on. There was much better weather than last year - ie wind and sun at the same time for most of the week which was amazing!! 1 afternoon and the next morning were rained out mid week but that provided a good opportunity to go into the village of Bowness, catch up on some sailing theory and have a very funny pub quiz! It was a great week - and even though I was teaching the beginner sailing group, I had a few good sails as well. I even got to wear the stunning shiny red shirt of shame when I went out sailing without a buoancy aid on!!! But hey... red suits me!!!!
As if I wasn't already exhausted, I no sooner left Sail and Surf (actually I left Friday night instead of Saturday) than I arrived a couple of trains later in Cheltenham for Greenbelt. Not really knowing what to expect, it was great. Jonathan picked me up from the station and we went back to the race course where the whole thing was held - basically its a big Christian festival with a mixture of arts and music and good festival vibe! We had a camp site about 15 minutes walk from everything. I had already organised to do some work there - so i had about 5 hours each day working in an internet cafe on site - serving drinks, charging phones as fast as we could and organising queues of people to use the internet. It was actually quite good fun - and got me a free ticket and some meal vouchers!!! Mostly there were bands I'd never heard of which were quite good, but we also saw a bit of the Proclaimers! They were actually quite good tho unfortunately i worked through most of it, but i could hear it through the door! Jonathan and I also went to a Taize service which was great - and really full. While I was there I recognised someone - it was Sue who was the leader of the group i sort of adopted at Iona last year! A nice co-incidence to see her (especially as she's now moved to Vancouver in the past week).
After Greenbelt, Jonathan, his friend Robin and I drove back to Liverpol the scenic way to avoid the motorway. It was a pleasant journey, although we added to it slightly with an accidental 15 mile detour when we turned south instead of north on the A49!! But hey... Since then I had a few days with Jonathan and his family in Liverpool, mostly catching up on sleep, but also it was Jonathan's 19th birhtday so he had a formal dinner with about 19 people! We also went to the Bank again where a crazy irish guy who'd been working there 3 years had his last day and got coated in water, flour, tomato sauce, chocolate sauce and mustard as a farewell... gesture!!
Now I'm back in Rushden. I had a rather too eventful trip yesterday - first the train parked for half an hour at no particular stop because a freight train broke down ahead of us, then I missed the next connection and the one after that was cancelled! Eventually the train company put the 25 or so of us wanting to go to Leicester all in taxis... so we arrived there and I got the next train to Wellingborough, arriving 20:40ish rather than 19:18 like I'd hoped - but it could have been worse!! And despite all that I'm planning to go back to see Jonathan in Liverpool in about 2 weeks time but that will be another story! In the mean time I'm beginning looking for work around Rushden, and there is a rememberance service for my great uncle David this Sunday.
However, I am alive!!
I have has a busy few weeks. I set out on a train to Liverpool Lime St station where I met up with my friend becky from Iona last year. I stayed a few days with her - we went into Chester in the rain and also into Liverpool to look around some museums. We even had a meal at the famous (well locally anyway) Mr Chow's Chinese restaraunt! We had the full banquet, it was great!
From there on Saturday I went back to my friend Jonathan's place to stay a night before Merseyfest began the next day. We went to church on Sunday and afterwards spent a while at 'the Bank' which is the village youth project - comfy place with a pool table, bar area, table tennis etc which is a drop in centre after school in the week and venue for other bits and pieces, all run by St Mary's Church. That night and the rest of the week was spent camping in Croxteth Park in Liverpool. The general format for each day was waking up (sometimes a struggle!) then a little Bible study with our group from the bank, then heading over to the 'big top' for some music and talks. There were some good bits. Then the 1800 of us there all headed out on buses to the train stations to get various places all over Liverpool for an afternoon of work of various sorts. Most of our group went to Upton - where their church is, along with some people who'd come from near London. Another 5 of us went to a nearby project in Bidston to help clear out some paths - with a lot of rubbish along them! On the Tuesday they said the needed a volunteer to go yet another different project as a 1 off from our already separated 5 - so as one of the 2 over 18s I went. I got to go a church where they were running an even for elderly people to raise awareness of bogus house callers - accompanied by an hour of English folk music, and then serving tea and coffee and cakes! It was quite fun really - and the hardest bit was staying awake through the music! Then some old lady was trying to set me up with the good looking policeman despite me protests!!
The week went really well and it was great to spend more time with my friend Jonathan and his friends doing things for God by doing practical work for people in their communities. We got a couple of keen kids who joined in and helped us pick up rubbish over the week and had fun chatting to them and other people passing by.
From there I went straight to the Lake District to lead on a camp in Windermere. There were a few leaders I remembered from last year as well as some new ones I got to know better as the week went on. There was much better weather than last year - ie wind and sun at the same time for most of the week which was amazing!! 1 afternoon and the next morning were rained out mid week but that provided a good opportunity to go into the village of Bowness, catch up on some sailing theory and have a very funny pub quiz! It was a great week - and even though I was teaching the beginner sailing group, I had a few good sails as well. I even got to wear the stunning shiny red shirt of shame when I went out sailing without a buoancy aid on!!! But hey... red suits me!!!!
As if I wasn't already exhausted, I no sooner left Sail and Surf (actually I left Friday night instead of Saturday) than I arrived a couple of trains later in Cheltenham for Greenbelt. Not really knowing what to expect, it was great. Jonathan picked me up from the station and we went back to the race course where the whole thing was held - basically its a big Christian festival with a mixture of arts and music and good festival vibe! We had a camp site about 15 minutes walk from everything. I had already organised to do some work there - so i had about 5 hours each day working in an internet cafe on site - serving drinks, charging phones as fast as we could and organising queues of people to use the internet. It was actually quite good fun - and got me a free ticket and some meal vouchers!!! Mostly there were bands I'd never heard of which were quite good, but we also saw a bit of the Proclaimers! They were actually quite good tho unfortunately i worked through most of it, but i could hear it through the door! Jonathan and I also went to a Taize service which was great - and really full. While I was there I recognised someone - it was Sue who was the leader of the group i sort of adopted at Iona last year! A nice co-incidence to see her (especially as she's now moved to Vancouver in the past week).
After Greenbelt, Jonathan, his friend Robin and I drove back to Liverpol the scenic way to avoid the motorway. It was a pleasant journey, although we added to it slightly with an accidental 15 mile detour when we turned south instead of north on the A49!! But hey... Since then I had a few days with Jonathan and his family in Liverpool, mostly catching up on sleep, but also it was Jonathan's 19th birhtday so he had a formal dinner with about 19 people! We also went to the Bank again where a crazy irish guy who'd been working there 3 years had his last day and got coated in water, flour, tomato sauce, chocolate sauce and mustard as a farewell... gesture!!
Now I'm back in Rushden. I had a rather too eventful trip yesterday - first the train parked for half an hour at no particular stop because a freight train broke down ahead of us, then I missed the next connection and the one after that was cancelled! Eventually the train company put the 25 or so of us wanting to go to Leicester all in taxis... so we arrived there and I got the next train to Wellingborough, arriving 20:40ish rather than 19:18 like I'd hoped - but it could have been worse!! And despite all that I'm planning to go back to see Jonathan in Liverpool in about 2 weeks time but that will be another story! In the mean time I'm beginning looking for work around Rushden, and there is a rememberance service for my great uncle David this Sunday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
