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 bed

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-flying

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 be

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! I have two days left at my job as a proper nurse, and so more hugs have been forthcoming. People have started wishing me luck in my new job, and I have

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 just

Week… Three? Thursday?

I might have to pay to remove ads from this blog. There was an ad for some kind of magic weight loss which I’d hate to pop up on something I’d written about radical self-acceptance. Urgh. That interview I had last week… I’ve got to the next stage where they’ve asked me to write a

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 may

Week Two – Wednesday

I had that interview today… I don’t know if I’ll get the job, but it’s very interesting – exciting – compelling – to see that there’s life outside the NHS. Healthcare workers might be the only people who suffer office work ideation. Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 is our hymn. I’ve got sixteen official shifts