Friday, July 15, 2005

Holiday weekend

Its a holiday weekend in a large part of Scotland this weekend. The holiday marks the start of the traditional Glasgow Fair holiday fortnight. It dates back to when this area was mostly industrial and all the factories and ship yards closed for the annual summer holidays. Each area of Scotland had its own Fair fortnight and it coincided with local fairs and gala weeks. The factories and ship yards are mostly long gone but the holiday remains. So this weekend the airport at Glasgow has its busiest time. Today is called Fair Friday and almost always the weather is dreadfully today and it usually rains. Its not raining and it is warm today but the weather is muggy and not nice at all.

This week, the weather gods got a bit confused and the West of Scotland had temperatures of 80-90 degrees during the day. Not really typically Scottish weather especially when you are a very fair skinned Celt like me. I only have to look at the sun to get sunburn. Added to that is the fact that we don't have air conditioning like those in USA and Canada. Sleeping has been a bit tricky to say the least.

Stitching wise, I haven't done much at all this week. Mostly I've been at work or up visiting my aunt in hospital or sleeping. Added to this is the fact that we changed soap at work a while back and its not agreeing with my hands. The skin on one of my fingers has split at the knuckles and the rest of my hands feel like sandpaper. Not ideal for stitching with silks. I've got an appointment to see someone at the Occupational Health department to sort it out and I've been given some cream until then. Meanwhile I still have to wash my hands 30+ times a day at work and use masses of hand cream.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

New technology and other stuff

I don't think I've mentioned this before but I love new gadgets. I like the whole process of learning something new. So I've been having fun today learning how to use my new mobile phone. Somehow, at some point on Monday, I managed to lose my mobile phone. Luckily it was a old one which I inherited for no money from my sister so I didn't particularly lose out.

The new one has a few more bells and whistles - a camera, bluetooth and WAP. And is easier to use. I did feel a bit patronised by the sales guy. I knew exactly what I wanted and told him that. The salesman seemed surprised that I had heard of bluetooth and knew how to set up a phone. Obviously women can't know these things. The other irritating thing was that he kept going on about their land line phone services inspite of the fact I told him four times that I wasn't interested and not to tell me any more about it.

On another note, the G8 summit is really getting on my nerves. Half the police from the west of Scotland are over in the East dealing with the violent element. I had to phone the local police to have a very suspicious and intoxicated man removed from just outside the ward I work in. The Police were great when they came but they took ages because they are very shorthanded. All their leave is cancelled too. Combined with that is the fact that the Police are advising against travel at all to Edinburgh unless you have to as its bursting at the seams. The ironic thing being that the summit isn't even there, its at Gleneagles in Perthshire. My aunt was supposed to be visiting my other aunt in hospital today but she didn't make it as she has to come through Edinburgh and the traffic and transport is a bit of a nightmare right now. I really, really want things to change during this summit but the nightmare element has arrived on the scene as usual to wreck a good campaign with fanastic aims. I don't know what the violent element hope to achieve but I don't see them influencing George Bush or anyone else by those methods.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Catching up

Life has been a bit busy over the past few weeks. My parents went away on holiday 2 weeks ago and just after they left on holiday, my mum's youngest sister phoned me at work to let me know that she was in hospital with an exacerbation of her Colitis. My mum has a big family (4 brothers and 5 sisters) but quite a few of them don't stay nearby and the other one who does is nursing her husband just now. So for the past two weeks, I have either been working or at the other hospital that my aunt is in. My parents came back today and my aunt is better but facing further treatment so the stress should reduce.
Work has been ultra stressful too. I started nights on Thursday and each night was worse than the night before. I've been shouted at, sworn at and had to convince a variety of people that 2am is time when everyone should be asleep (apart from the staff obviously). I also had to deal with a trumatic emergency situation that did not turn out positively and has left all the staff shocked and upset. Still the lovely words of another patient who has said he is coming back to give us presents because of all we did and would give us all a reference, cheered us up and made it easier to carry on.

Stitching time has been sparse over the past few weeks. I'm up to date with 2 of my 3 round robins and I should get the other one sorted soon. I have some other obligation stuff to get finished also. Various wools and patterns to knit are still catching my eye and I'm thinking of knitting a blanket from the new issue of Simply knitting also