A week in Derby... and a week in Yeovil

Back on the trains, nine days later... Nine days sounds like so long, but it's really not! It's flown by all too quickly. I wish I could have turned it in to longer. Which is ridiculous, I hardly have a demanding or tiring rotation at the moment. But maybe that's the problem, I know that this week has speed by because I have been so busy and surrounded by those I hold so dear, and I'm heading back towards something which I'm not fully enjoying. It's so silly, I find myself quite conflicted about my feelings towards GP land. It's not what I want to do, I don't want to be there, I'm frustrated by the buses and how expensive they are, my budget is being gobbled up by spending nearly £40 a week on buses plus the couple of misadventures when I've missed my bus and had to pay for a very expensive taxi. And I miss being at the hospital really badly. I miss being hecticly busy, and getting stuck in. I prefer the roles and responsibilities placed on me by hospital practice. And I miss the comeradery if being there, being able to unwind with my contemporaries and the banter you engage in with the nurses, physios, pharmacists and all those people. I get annoyed by my lack of knowledge and constantly (or so it seems) having to ask for help. Yet I don't actually have anything to complain about. Everyone in GP land is very sweet and accommodating, and I do enjoy parts of it, like the variety and the different types of patients - it's fun to do a little paeds. Yet it's by far the least passion I've had for any of my rotations, leaving me sitting here on this train, sad that I'm finished my week of annual leave and that tomorrow I'll be back at work.

....

And then another week later - kinda forgot to finish this post.

So Derby:

 You can just about make out the huge spider and beyond - all the apples wasted during the 3 weeks my parents were away.

 My exciting parcel, all squidged down, was:

 Half a coloured Ryeland shearling fleece, completely raw and ready to be worked on.

 The first soak (and my toes!)

 Disgusting and slightly smelly water after the first soak.

 Subsequent soaks getting clearer.

 I got a chance to finish the sweater for Conner.

And knitted a whole lace shawlette for my gran as part of TGCC.  Here's an early shot.

I spent many long but all too quick hours at Sarah's, with her family and Emma and Connor.  It was such a special time, and something I hold so dear.  To just be, in calm chaotic companionship.  We knitted, gossiped, drank endless cups of tea, went for walks with the girls, did a little cooking, a little cleaning and laundry... And apparently, reading that back, somewhere along the way turned into our mothers!  We also went swimming.  I went to the cinema twice, once with my Mum, as a girls night out when my dad was away overnight for work, and then with Jenna, to give her a chance to do something fun and uninterupted by little people.  I went for a lovely dinner with my wonderful Sam (and there may have been other people there, I forget now! ;)).  Really quite busy with simple nothingness.

And on the Saturday, a special muddy and at times very wet walk with so many of my nearest and dearest.

The Attenborough Nature Reserve - a place for the designing of mischief and meyhem.

 E.g. the grownups getting stuck up trees.

 A place where you have to dress appropriately...

... For puddle stomping...

 ...Saying hello to horses...

... Picnicking...

 ... and tickles...

 Feeding...

 ...and then chasing ducks...

 Adults who don't dress appropriately for these activities will do so at their own risk!

 We did find safer ways to feed the ducks.

 And at the end of it all... well there were smiles all round and everyone survived!

And then we headed back to Sarah's for a nice warming cup of tea, and dress up, for which Kev was very indulgent!

And I wonder why I sit on the train lamenting the end of my annual leave!  But life goes on, but with happy, warm fuzzy feeling inducing memories to keep me going until I next get to see everyone.  Thanks. :)

Revising(ish)

I think I've at long last recovered from Friday and it's build up.  It's been a harsh journey, much more so than I realised, but then the weekend came, and... well I'm glad I came home, I really needed that support.  I've been utterly exhausted, teary, headachy and just very down.  Is this what stress is?  It's not what I thought "stress" would be, but I can't think of any other explanation.  It's so surreal, and not me at all.  I knew that it was a tough build up to Friday, but I didn't think that I felt stressed.  This all sounds a little bizarre - how can I not know myself and my physical and emotional response to such pressure?  I don't know, I suppose this is the most intense period of stress in my life, and I suppose I've just not reacted/responded how I thought I would.  One thing I do know is that I'm not expressing myself very well here, and I'm just coming off as a little strange...

The weekend wasn't the most productive time, although I'm not sure if I really mind this.  I was talking to the people I was living with in Weston and they all pretty much said they would take the weekend off, so maybe I should have set off with that attitude.  Pushing myself to revise probably wasn't beneficial, but I suppose no harm was ultimately done.  I'm trying to build myself up again into a rhythm of lots of work and lots of revising.  I'm getting there... slowly.  I feel less tired today than I have in a while, and I can pretty much guarantee that I'll get a headache in the next couple of hours and just want to curl up into a ball and sleep.  But I was able to fight this yesterday courtesy of some paracetamol and a cup of tea, and just sitting in a semi-darkened room and taking it easy.

I've been spinning like mad and doing a little bit of knitting here and there as a distractor/post dinner time filler.  I've mainly been working on my blue, lilac and pink stole, it's slowly growing, although I am fast approaching the end of my first skein (at last!) and I didn't bring the other one... ooops!  And I'm about 60% through spinning the singles out of that coloured top, and I'm not sure if I want to ply on my green spindle, so the end of that project is coming soon here in Derby, as I didn't bring either of my other spindles.  Mmmm, I may have to just revise - shock horror!  Lol!  I've got lots of wool here, from the Easter dyeing, but none of my needles, so I could raid my mums... but I'd also need to think of what I wanted to do with it all!  And that all just might be too big of a distraction for now...

Derby: Breathe and reboot

Yay, home with my mummy! :)  Although admittedly I'm now home alone (unless my brother counts...) it was so nice to come home to have my mum there to give me a hug and to let myself get rid of some very built up tension.  And as always, nice not to have to cook my own food, and nice to have a proper relaxing bath, a nice comfy bed, a good night's sleep.  Yes, it was the right thing to do to come back here.

But now... lol, oh so tempted to make arrangements to see friends?  Do I dare, because there is just such a strong possiblitiy that "an hour or two" turns into half the day!  But friends are an important part of my support network... right?  Lol!  I will have to be very strong and make sure I minimise unrevision time, e.g. read stuff on bus.  mmmm.... and my mum can't moan too much, she's been busy making plans to have my grandparents and aunt round for Sunday lunch, as if that's not going to be a distraction!?

But I am feeling more ready to go and tackle the world, now I just need to go get some food in my belly and a cuppa and who knows what I could achieve!

Derby Healing (Post of the day 1)

Okay, so here's the deal.  I've just checked when I last posted and it was well over a week ago.  Man, it started so well.  And for a change, it isn't actually because I've lacked things to talk about.  I agree, it's partly because I've been feeling so out of it and in a... erm, how shall I put it?  A funny mood?  But I'm determined to get myself out of it, and I know that being in Derby has gone a long way to get me started on that front.  So... anyways, the afore mentioned deal is that I'm going to attempt to put up two posts today.  The first all about Derby, and the second a quick catch up about what else has been going on.  That is, if I can remember all of Derby coherently!  It's been a while!

Thursday: a little bit of a lie in (whatelse is new!?) and then after rattling round the empty house, I decided to gate crash Sarah's.  And I walked!  (surprisingly on 32mins door to door, why did I never think to do it before?).  Just the quiet, loud, peace chaos of having little people running around.  Even if they are sleepy and are thus just perfect for long snuggly cuddles when Mummy needs the loo!:

(hehe, sorry for stealing the photo Sarah, but it's cute!!)
And then there was good food, crafting talk and doing, catching up.  And just being.  Sarah is very good at letting me do this.  Just being.  It's hard to describe.  It's nothing "special" in particular but it's perfection in stillness and unwinding (just spent ages searching for the right word, and I'm still not happy, but that will have to do!).  I don't feel the pressure to be anything but myself.  Which sounds like a stupid statement.  Do I really go through life not being myself?  No, not really.  But I'm usually a label, myself, but a particular version of it.  A medical student.  A nursing assistant.  Enthusiastic about going out.  Alone but not minding.  Crowded but not minding.  Running around.  But in these quiet moments (well, it's quiet in a different way, I mean, come on, how quiet can you be with three littles running around!?) I'm none of those labels.  And it's so good for me to stop, and be unlabelled!  And I always feel calmer and safe and more at peace from my life's stress after these times.  I'm not forced to be something, and always being something is draining.  I need a break, but I don't always realise it. 

And before I realised it, it was late.  Where had the time gone?!  And a very kind Martin drove me home.  But not before I had started to make plans for a very busy Friday.

Friday:  Met Emma and Connor at 1pm for some lunch and a wonder around some shops.  A lovely catch up and time to spend with two very dear and special people to me.  Even if the poor loves were both feeling under the weather following a nasty cold.  I can't believe how much Connor has grown.  And he's so lovely, so smilely and ready to give me his very biggest grin!  Aww, how can I resist such charm! 

Then we met up with a solo Sarah, whilst Martin took the girls to a dad's group.  Girlie day out!  Going wool shopping and wool-lusting.  Picking out colours for new projects, and in my case picking up wool for the sake of it.... well, because it was on special, and they were both yarns I have been wanting to try out... now what to do with them!?  And going to tea and cake.  Can't remember the last time we did this.  Just the three (and a bit) of us. 

And then time to tag team out friends, and meet more!  Lol!   My hot sexy SamSam (hehehe! ;) hehe!)  and Simon.  Dinner at Nandos, with sangria, then back to Sam's for more sangria, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble and Buzz.  Lots of giggles and chatting and catching up with Sam.  Trying to get me tipsy!  lol!  Until Kev came home and again it was a case of a day that flew by.  And again, a lovely beautiful day of contrasts and such a wonderful reminder of why I'm so lucky.  I have such amazing friends, who all bring out something different in me, and know so well how to keep me entertained and to cheer me up about all the recent events.

Saturday:  I had originally planned to go to dinner at Sarah's again, and have a little bit of a games night.  But I was getting the distinct impression that my parents were getting miffed about me coming home and STILL not seeing them!  So, I cancelled dinner and did the dutiful thing of staying in and relaxing with them.  Laughing with my mum in the kitchen as we washed up and got things ready for a birthday meal for my aunt.  Awww... I will miss them not being around when I go back to Derby for Easter.  It will be so strange being in their house without them.  But I'm sure I'll cope.

Sunday:  Family day of note!  Grandparents, aunt, cousin, parents.  Tasty roast.  I never get round to doing roasts for just me.  I ate so much that I never got round to having pudding, even though mums made a very tasty (looking) pavlova and a sticky toffee pudding.  I got my laptop out and showed Gran and Hayley all my knitting and displayed all my crazy new knowledge about knitting techniques, yarn characteristics and dyeing.  I think I may have lost them.  I did get to show off my newly completed scarf for Farah.  It looks so pretty and in sunlight looks much more muted than I was expecting.  I'm dead proud on my first lace knitting attempt.  I still need to block it so that the pattern shows off properly.  But it looks a little like this:

Monday:  Story time at the library with Sarah and Emma and their respective babes.  Hehe.  Playing games like "where's Morgan?  Have you seen Morgan, Daddy?  I wonder where she's got to..." and running around with Jenna.  I love so much spending time with these kids.  I think it has a lot to do with the kid philosophy of living for the moment and making life's purpose about the pursuit of fun.  And what's wrong with that?  More tea drinking and then back to Sarahs.  On the bus for me, with a angelically behaved Jenna who asked to come along.  Only a few dodgy looks when she started talking about how everyone would be thinking "That woman came into town alone, but now, what's going on?  She's got a kid with her!"  Ermm... shhhhhhhhh Jenna!  People frown upon things like that!  I honestly haven't stolen you and your parents know where you are!  And you know where you are!  Don't make the good citizens of Derby want to lynch me!

Tuesday:  Mumsie's day off.  So quality Mumsie time.  Chilling out at home watching rubbish tv movies and nipping into town and browsing round M&S.  Such a mummy thing to do!  lol!  Only spoilt by the gaggle of chav school girls who insisted that my mother had knocked a little toddler that was with them (don't know why they had a kid with them, I'm sure most of them were in uniform).  Thing was my mum hadn't even moved her chair!  And they were really quite agressive about it.  And my mum's not really the sort who handles herself well in these situations.  They really bullied her.  Annoying bunch of little such and suchs, really upset her.

Wednesday:  Special day.  I got to see my Godmother, who I've not seen in like a decade.  It was lovely to see her.  And to feel her love and her positive effect on my parents.  She's a cousin (of some sort!) of my dad and when my parents were newly wed with little kids, and my mom's parents lived in England, she was a proxy mum for my mum.  She has a very special place in our hearts.  How lovely to still be in touch with her and for her to visit. 

And then it was time to go back to Bristol.  Already put off by a day so I could see Auntie Vonnie. 

As you may have noted, I've not mentioned my audit report.  It was really pushed to the back of my mind and instead was left as a joy for Bristol. 

Derby did exactly what I wanted and needed it to do.  It healed me.  It destressed me.  After the month I had had, I needed the love and support of my friends and family close to me.  I wasn't coping very well by myself.  I was feeling so low, and on the verge of tears that never came. And so I went back to Bristol with a lighter heart and more at peace with the crash and all it's stress.  Some good will come of it (and I think it may already have) and I needed some time, support and perspective.  And I've had that now.  I feel more relaxed about it.  I still feel very sad about it all, and obviously I wish it had never happened.  But I'm finally okay with it having happened.  I'm still not back to my normal bouncy self.  I still feel a little depressed and amotivated but it's improving.  And that's what I've got to focus on.

Star Trekkin'

I had a very enjoyable day today of entertaining my friends and watching Star Trek.  Was lovely and relaxing.  We had a very lazy lunch of d.i.y. sandwiches, although Sarah ended up making most of them, and various chocolates and baked goods.  I was very impressed with myself, I don't normally have friends round to my house in Derby, mainly because it actually isn't my house, it's my parents, and I'm always very conscious of the fact that my definition of tidy is greatly sub-par to theirs.  I'm very paranoid that they'll get annoyed if I "trash" the house (worrying that my idea of "lived in" borders on their's of trashed!).  Whilst yes, this is still some version of my home, I do feel more like a visitor here than a resident, I do after all, in a typical year spend less than a month in total here.

But I always feel bad about the fact that I'm always gatecrashing my friends houses, eating their food and creating havoc in their lives, and I never get to repay the favour.  So I decided to rectify that.  And the house survived, all in one piece, and I hope I didn't come off as too much of a control freak!  So I'm really glad I did it.  My folks house isn't really child proof, but I think we did alright and everyone had an enjoyable time (well I did at least, so hope they did too!), even if the girls got a little bored with the grown ups insistence at watching a long movie and wanting to see the tv screen!

I did get my camera out to document the occasion, but never got round to switching it on!  Sometimes I really do need to remember that not every aspect of day to day life needs documenting, either in great detail or with visual aids.  Sometimes it's okay just to let life happen and stop being so worried that I'll forget about all the good times!  So that's all you're getting.

Finally getting to eat some turkey

Yay, made it out of bed for the entire day today - I feel like progress is being made.  Even if I felt like a zombie for a significant proportion of that time!  And I even got round to eating properly, although as you may expect, with a bunged up nose, taste wasn't a big experience! 

My family and I went round to my mom's cousin's and his family for a lovely lunch of turkey curry (it is the quini-essential British thing to do with leftovers, isn't it?).  I had a serious appetite on me today after having barely eaten for two days and managed to enjoy all of the wonderful food on offer, and got to spend some lovely quality family time with everyone, something which I've also missed out on the last two days.  Again, I don't think I was really a full participant of the occasion, spending most of it sniffling, blowing my nose and feeling exhausted.  But I'm really glad I did it, was beginning to miss out on having company and it's always very important for my parents to be able to spend sometime with the whole family together (my older brother also lives away from Derby and makes it back even less than I do), even if it is just a token event.

I'm really starting to feel restless, I was really hoping to make the most of my time here in Derby, but with a cold, I feel kinda out of commission, as a lot of my friends have small children and even for those who don't, I don't really want to be going round infecting them, or making them paranoid that I'll be infecting them, and I don't know how much fun it would be for them to spend time with someone nursing the back end of a cold.  I'm hoping that tonight will be the first really good night sleep I've had since before Christmas Eve, but this will make it even more frustrating if I'm feeling rested but still coughing and sniffling.  I suppose that I could always get really stuck in with my knitting (good progress being made - now measures 17cm vs yesterday's 7cm, which may not really sound like much, but I was out most of the day!) or maybe go to the cinema as there's a couple of things on which I wouldn't mind seeing (Sherlock Holmes, Nine, Avatar) but they're both things I could do when alone in Bristol, and makes it all seem like such a waste of my valuable Derby time!  And I know I definitely don't want to be hitting the chaos that is town, because I don't really have the money to be spending and whilst I'm getting better, still don't think I will have the energy to tackle the crowds, and the lack of money (going full circle here) kind of makes it pointless.  Ohhh what to do, what to do...  I actually don't know why I'm getting so longwinded about this all here, I really should just have a proper think about it in the morning once I've had some sleep.  I'll aim for a nice lie in and then a good old bath and hair wash, drop my brother off at the train station around noon and then see how up for facing the world I really am.  This sounds like the most wise plan right now!  So off I go!

Another day spent (mainly) in bed

Oh dear, this Christmas is turning out to be a bit of a write off for me!  I've just spent most of another day in bed, feeling a little sorry for myself whilst the rest of my family trasped off to my grandparents for yet more festive feasting.  I'm feeling much better with regards to the gastro today, and although I have eaten a bit today, I've been taking things rather carefully as my gut is still not 100%.  But instead, today's ailment was a cold.  Yes for those keeping score, another cold, about three weeks since the last one!  I'm beginning to think that there maybe something wrong with my immune system, but having said that, most people I've been around for the last few days have had a cold, including my poor mum who is exhausted with hers, so maybe it's hardly surprising that I've come down with something.  And this one seems (touch wood) much milder than the last cold I had, even coming hot on the heels of a dodgy tum, so hopefully I will be able to recover quickly, especially as tomorrow we are supposed to be going round to some more family for yet another meal.  It would be nice to make at least one of the Christmas weekend family gatherings!

I did managed to get myself out of bed by midafternoon, and I was determined not to go back as I really would like a proper night's sleep, something I didn't get round to having last night, mainly I think, due to having slept so much yesterday.  So, fingers crossed on that account.  This time out of bed was mainly spent watching mind numbing t.v. and Wallace and Gromit - soooo cute, I love that movie, those little bunny rabbits are so ruddy adorable!  I have made a slow, half-hearted attempted at my next knitting project, but I'll update more when I've got beyond the current 7 rows!  And now, off to bed for a good night sleep, hopefully!