On Running +/- Zombies

I’ve always hated running. Even when I’ve been fairly fit I’ve never managed to get to the end of the street without my throat, lungs, knees, head, everything crying out in burning pain and rage. Running is bad for you. It has to be; it hurts. Runners’ bowels bleed, for goodness’ sake. Look it up.Continue

Today I Am Proust

I am not getting out of bed today. I have a cold. Being ill is like falling in love. It is incapacitating, it gives you a headache, a stomachache, you eat too much or too little, you are surrounded by moist tissues and exuded body fluids, you dehydrate and medicate, and you stay in bedContinue

New Year, Same Resolutions as Every Other New Year

The year is 2020. I should be writing that I’m living in a flying car-partment on the moon, or that we’ve achieved world peace or nuclear standoff or are living under cockroach rule. We might not be so far from the nuclear standoff. Instead, I’m trying to get back to work, in my normal non-flyingContinue

How to Work From Home

It’s easy to get on with it when you’re stuck into a job, when you’ve done the reading and you know what your references are going to be and you’ve given yourself a bit of time to develop a reasonably deep understanding of a subject so that you can just write what need to beContinue

After The End

Succinctly summing up my career by laughing and crying at the same time. It was my last day – and last drugs round – yesterday. My colleagues secretly teamed up to put on a vegan buffet in The Big Cupboard (don’t tell the matron), and gave me flowers and gin and other lovely things. IContinue

Two Days To Go

I have not blogged recently; I have been too busy. Too busy! Busy with real, paid, reasonably consistent writing work! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! A portrait of the writer handing in her resignation. I have two days left at my job as a proper nurse, and so more hugs have been forthcoming. People have started wishingContinue

Seven Shifts Left

I’ve got seven shifts left, or eighteen meds rounds until I stop measuring time in terms of number of drugs rounds. Shift patterns mean that I’ve reached a stage where I’ve started working with people for the last time. If you work somewhere that does thirteen hour shifts, a lot of the staff might justContinue

10 Shifts… but TWENTY-SEVEN DRUGS ROUNDS left.

Ten shifts doesn’t sound like much, does it? Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Sounds too soon and like I don’t really know if I want to leave, doesn’t it? Sounds like, actually, I’m leaving work really soon and it hasn’t sunk in and I don’t know if I’ve really thought it through? I’ve found it helpsContinue

Friday Night’s Alright For Procrastinating

I’m working early tomorrow so ‘Friday night’ (wo0o0o) is a largely academic proposal. Literally so tonight, as I battle to explain in 1000 well-evidenced yet articulate and accessible words why kiwi fruit are just so damn good for you. I don’t know that it’s even true; they’re currently making me question all my decisions –Continue

Week Three, Monday

I have 14 shifts left before I leave work. As I’m walking out with no guaranteed income and will be on the nurse bank for the same hospital there’s a good chance I’ll be there quite a lot anyway, but it’s a psychological hurdle. As I’m getting closer to leaving, I’m aware that I mayContinue