As many of you know, I have recently started a new job and am still finding my way around, both figuratively and literally. Although I have lived in this town off and on since I was thirteen years old, there are so many new areas that have sprung up and many rural areas right out in the sticks that I had never heard of.

I am zooming about in my little gold car now (sadly my lovely yellow one is gone as I thought it might not be suitable for some of the areas due to it being lowered and other stuff that Boy Racers do to their cars to make them noisy and faster), getting myself lost in all sorts of beautiful places.

On a couple of occasions, I have been right out in the middle of nowhere and thought I might get a photo of the beautiful North Downs countryside, but Sod’s Law dictates that someone will pull up behind me the minute I am focusing on the shot, and I have to move out of the way!

With technology being at the forefront of providing a good and efficient service, I have a tablet which will make easier once I have been on the mandatory training course.Anyway, there was update training that everyone had to try and go to midway through the week, at a nearby venue. It has been a busy day and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it, especially as I still had one patient to see over the other side of town.

Now, being as I am I hate being late for anything as I find it is rude for those waiting on you, and it puts me out. However, patients do not fit into nice little time slots and the first few that I visited had extra problems or concerns that I had to deal with. Thre are a few patients that it makes sense to visit at specific times, and this last patient I had to see across town was normally seen at 12.30. It was now nearly 2.pm (which is when this training started as well)!

I turned up, tired, desperate for the loo and starving, having not eaten my lunch only to find y patient was sitting at the table tucking into his KFC! He did not want to be disturbed and was due to have another visit the next day so was happy to leave it.

The smell of the chicken made my stomach growl even louder, but I had no time to satisfy it, having to rush to get to the training which had now been going for about 15 minutes. Needless to say, when I arrived, everything was in full swing. The small room was packed, but I noticed a spare chair outside which I was going to plonk just inside the door. The senior management that were sat there  motioned for me to move the chair to the front of the room. I picked it up but being the klutz that I am tripped over it just as I was sidling up to the front, and the chair smacked to the wooden floor with a resounding bang, which of course woke everyone up and they turned to look at my glowing red face as I tried to sit there unobtrusively.

The room was stifling hot, I did not have much of a clue about what was going on, and the fact that I was desperate for the loo had me fidgeting constantly throughout the rest of the session, with my stomach rumbling in protest at being deprived of food. My face meanwhile, became redder and redder.

As soon as it was over, I rushed to the loo then as I returned to the foyer, was hugged by two nurses that had worked on the same ward as me at the hospital but had left to work in the community. Sadly, there are in a different team covering another area to me, but it was so nice to see them.

One of them told me she had seen  me make an entrance to the room, and knew it had to be me barging in making a such a racket. I laughed as she said it, then saw someone who I recognised walk past. I prodded him and said hello. He politely returned the greeting, but it was obvious he didn’t have a clue who I was. I told my friends he was my sister’s friend (she has known him for years, and I have met him several times) but they already knew him as he worked with them. Awkward!

Must be the glasses that confused him, as I hate wearing them out of work!

 

 

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