Bored now

And again I'm at work blogging in the wee hours of the day. The main reason for this is that I'm really really bored. There are no intruders and I really doubt there will be after 4am. I may go for a wander but it takes too long to put the various bits of kit on - I may be lazy as well as bored.

So, todays well supplied night bar watcher is dressed in black trousers and an old festival tshirt. On his person he has various bits of kit related (or not) to the general job including a radio (for contacting others around the place), a mobile phone (for contacting everyone else), a leatherman (for fixing or breaking things), a torch (for temporarily blinding the intruders), electrical tape (for the dodgy fan cover), various pens, paper and a whole load of keys. He is highly trained in the art of following intruders from a safe distance and asking them to leave as well as the having ability to call the police without moving the phone.

My mind is wandering again. I blame thinking about butterfat percentages.

Back Again

Well I'm at work again and for a little longer this time. I was at work for 19 hours yesterday (think of the money, think of the money) and something stupid like 20 hours planned today with the joy of keg moving at 7am. Not really the ideal way to spend my morning, but never mind.

Tonight I do have a friend around keeping me company. He is off guarding another section of the building but we are in radio contact and maintaing the perimeter. I could actually do with some company in here because the ice machine is doing its best to scare me to death. First its the rattling of ice that sounds like footsteps. Then the coughing noise as the chiller turns off. Then the random clunking noises it makes for the hell of it. It may be the only thing keeping me awake for the next 3 hours before other people arrive, but I wish it wouldn't. I'm sure it doesn't make these noises during the day.

It really doesn't help that I've taken my glasses off to read and I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eyes. Not actual hallucinations just yet. Maybe soon. The flickering is in single vision, that's how I know it's not real.

Part 6 - Sunny

Its getting light outside. Still a little chilly though, and guess who forgot a coat...

Part 5 - TV

Television is crap at 3am. Even with many many sky channels I couldn't find a channel with sick animals or anything like that. I'm stuck with Star Trek or some nonsense about forensic science. Or football.

Part 4 - Revision

To be honest it isn't going well at all. I expected it to go a little better than this, but I think the past day or so has really taken it out of me and I'm a little tired. And being at work for over 13 hours doesn't really help with the concentration. If I do this again tomorrow I will a) bring more music b) not be in work at midday and c) not forget my pen drive with all my ems forms to type up.

Not long to go I suppose. Might go for another wander around the grounds.

Part 3 - Only 6 hours to go

Still awake, and with my first rounds completed, all is well. Very little going on. Everyone else has left so it's just me and the TV at the moment. Oh and the revision of course.

Part 2 - still here

I'm still here and rather bored. At least I'm still not alone, there are other people about, but I don't know any of them and they are working in a different area. My most exciting duty so far has been giving brooms out and bringing them back in again. Thrilling!

Special report - part 1

Due to a lack of anything else better to do I'm going to blog my evening/night at work. I arrived in today sometime before midday and I don't finish until about 6am. So far I've been sticking toilet roll holders to the wall, climbing the side of building to paint and screwing various bits of metal on to other, less fun buildings.

Now I'm sitting in work alone with nothing but revision and this laptop to keep me company. One of my few tasks throughout the night is to lock some gates and wander around from time to time looking for intruders. Oh and I need to eat apparently.

Why?!

This piece of news caught my eye today, and I'm wondering why I need to know that a 15 year old child may have rabies after being bitten by a bat. He felt dizzy after being bitten - that's called shock. He brother died - quite sad, not relevant. He has had the vaccinations, he has been to hospital. The risk of him catching rabies is so low that I really don't think I care. If he does develop the disease, that's obviously more of a worry. Rant over.

Back to work

It is festival time again, and so it's time for me to get back to work. There is loads to do over the next week before we will be ready for the customers, but I think we will manage. As head stock guy I'm having to find room for all the kegs and bottled beer etc as well as organise all the wine and spirits. Oh and I'm also sent around with the drill to fix many broken things. It's sometimes tough being wanted.

Yesterday the main delivery of stock arrived. In total we moved around 25 tons through the day, with over 15 tons (including 100 kegs) arriving before breakfast. The worst suprise of the day was an order of 5 tons of coke products that was meant to arrive on Thursday, by which time I would have had somewhere to put it. At least it's here now and mostly out of the way and organised.

Now I'm at the vet school trying to do some work and failing somewhat. So much to do and so little time. Back to work.

New Flat

I miss having the internet at home! This will hopefully be fixed by the middle of next week, but I don't know if I will be able to make use of it until I move the rest of my stuff around.

So far there is very little in the way of furniture in the flat. I have no bed so am sleeping on the floor. There is no sofa, although we do have a couple of chairs. Again, everything should be arriving next week. I'm really looking forward to it! Now all that really needs to be done is inform everyone of my new address, particularly as stuff can't be sent home any more. I've done the bank, but I need to sort the phone humans, doctor, dentist, blood-taking people and various other people that I will no doubt forget.

I'm now bored of being underground in a computer lab. I did plan to be in the vet school, but that's closed over the weekend. No fair, it smells better in there.

Head Fixing

Yesterday was the appointment of doom with the lovely people who were going to fix my eyes and head. It started off badly as no one seemed to know where I was meant to be going. Was I an emergency appointment or a referral? Or a regular patient? Turns out I'm an emergency. Nice to be classified like that to my face. Didn't really help the feeling of "Oh shit!". I don't intend to tell my patients they are emergencies unless I know what is wrong with them and are helping them.

Anyway, I was first seen by a nurse who handed me off to a lovely lady to got me to look various ways, asked about the double vision and stuck a prism on my glasses. Only a temp fix and it really makes my eyes sore when I first use it, but better than nothing, at least I can maybe see straight.

Doctor time next, more poking, prodding and shoving. No muscle weakness here! There were a few hundred questions about headaches, eyes, family, etc etc, then a quick look at my retina. This involved stimulating the sympathetic bit of the eye whilst blocking the parasympathetic with eye drops and watching my pupils go HUGE. There were really bright lights shone at me which I really didn't enjoy. Couldn't see straight for ages and my eyes were watering and wanting to close. Then a quick poke of the old eyes to make sure they have feeling, and yes they do. Lots of it.

All this took about 3 hours, and the final verdict is my abductor muscles on my left eye are basically being slow. It could be an old thing decompensating, but no one knows why, so time for more tests. They took 6000 pints* of my blood to look for anything and everything which, considering some of my virus work could be fun. And I have an MRI planned for sometime in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I'm to go back if my head explodes.

All very exciting, but I feel like I'm no further in guessing why I can't see very well. Still, loads of revision to do, EMS to write up and things to climb.

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* This may be a slight exaggeration

Run Away!

The escape begins. Everything is packed and ready, tickets purchased and lift to the station sorted. Yay! Edinburgh here I come.

Good Day

It's all be fairly doom and gloom recently, and I'm bored of that. Today was great though it didn't start off too well. I went to visit old friends.

I was doing some computer work for a friend so was late leaving and had to run for the train. Good to know it takes 6 minutes to run to the station still, even with a big bag and boots. Not great as my time for a mile, but I'll get better. The train was dead on time for a change, I was shocked!

It was 1030 when I arrived at my destination - the vet practice where I've been seeing some practice for about 10 years now. Lots has changed, but there are a few people I know, including the guys who went up the 3 peaks. I had a chat with a few people, then got invited to stay for a bit. There was a plan to get the 1230 train home, but some of the vets were away on calls, so I decided to stick around. A good choice as everyone I wanted to see arrived after lunch, including some surprise guests who I really hadn't expected to see.

We messed around for most of the day doing very little work apart from putting up some shelves in the kennels and looking at an old Labrador. Most of the time was spent drinking tea and catching up. There is one vet who went to Edinburgh as well a few years ago, so we spent a while talking about different lecturers and places in Edinburgh.

I got a lift home afterwards, so no running for me. The weather cleared up too so I could take puppy for a walk. It was great to catch up and reinforce my ties with the practice. I hope to do most of my clinical EMS there, but I'll need to find somewhere to stay.

Leaving Home

When I leave here on Tuesday it will be the last time I am at this house, there will be no more home for me. There hasn't really been home for a few years now, ever since I arrived home to find my bed gone from my rom and having to sleep in the spare room, but now the house itself will be gone. It struck me today as I was walking back from the pub, wandering down a dark lane, not really paying much attention, but knowing where I was going. Usually I am able to wander home from the pub in the village and watch the stars. This will be no more. Can't really go in to any more detail, it's hard to write it down. I'm just sad.

Eyes

On Friday I got a call from the GP in Edinburgh. Apparently the consultant at the eye fixing place has had a look at the letter my GP sent over a month ago and would like to see me rather urgently. At the same time as I was talking to these people I had a call from the eye humans saying exactly the same thing.

They were wondering when I was going back to Edinburgh. I replied I would be back Tuesday and am now the proud owner of an appointment early on Wednesday morning. I'm still getting the same symptoms - double vision, few headaches - but nothing new. The lady on the phone sounded worried though. I may be screwed. On the plus side I won't have to take my resits!

EMS Is No More

My time with the horses has come to an end, and I was suprisingly sad to leave. It was like saying goodbye to a bunch of new friends I had grown to know over the past few weeks, each with their different traits and personalities. I'm probably not meant to pick a favourite, but it would be a close call between Holly and Merlin.

Merlin would be nearly the ideal horse to learn to ride on, and he was the best to practice various bits and pieces on as he was very laid back. I honestly think I could have started operating on him and he wouldn't have cared. He'd just look on with his big brown eyes and droopy lip, then go back to munching his bed.

Holly was more of a character than Merlin - if she didn't like what you were doing she would misbehave. Not badly i.e. kicking, rearing, but she would move around, lift her head to stop you putting the bridle on, that kind of thing. She has a devious streak which I found out when I was sent to worm her.

All of the horses were great, the puppies at the place were great and the people I was working with were great. They spent a lot of time explaining things to me that would have been very useful for the horse practical exam. Ah well.

Puppies!

These little puppies are very very cute. I wonder if I can lie about my age and enter the competition to play with them for a day...

Wasp

I just got chomped by an evil bastard wasp. I'm not entirely sure how it managed to infiltrate my trousers without detection, but somehow it got up there and had time to sting before it was hit. I then dropped a phone book on it as it lay on the floor. Revenge is sweet.

Weekend

First week of evil horses done, and so far they don't seem to be that bad. I think I must just be lucky and be dealing with decent example of the species. I'm learning lots about their husbandry though, which is the point of the exercise. I just wish I'd been there before the practical handling exam. May have been useful.

Today I managed to get away for a couple of hours climbing at the local leisure centre. Well, I say climbing, but really I was only bouldering due to a lack of other people who could belay for me. The walls look fairly simple, but I'm getting bored being stuck around ground level all the time. Maybe I shall stand outside with a sign tomorrow. Today was nice and sunny as well, so I decided to walk back home. Only about 3 miles, but it took me an hour with the diversion for ice cream. I hadn't had a cornetto in years!

Stage 4 - Man Down!

During the trip back to Wales it became pretty clear that I was in no fit state to carry on with the challenge. Between us we guessed that I was suffering from dehydration, exhaustion and a pinch of hypothermia added in just for fun. Luckily there were 3 vets to look after me. The decision was made to leave me behind.

In retrospect its pretty obvious that this was a good plan. The weather up Snowdon was terrible with poor visability and the aches and pains of two others mountains dragging the group down, although they made it in the end.

For my part, I arrived home at 0500 Sunday morning, said hello to the dog, and then went straight to bed. There was the sensation of being dehydrated for a couple of days with my body not being happy with lots of liquids at once. I started the horse EMS on Monday, staggering in to the place, hardly able to walk due to general bad legs and hips. Everything seems to be fixed, except for a few huge bruises on my legs where I fell in the river.

All over now. I'm upset that I didn't make it up the last peak, but it was the most sensible option. Maybe next year.

Photos!

Managed to retrieve some pics from the trip, but only Ben Nevis so far. Other people are sending me photos but I don't really expect them to look at all decent after the bad weather. I shall upload soon. They are on facebook anyway.

Stage 3 - Scafell Pike

The trip to Scafell took a little longer than we expected, although I'm pretty sure I was asleep for at least a small portion of the journey. It's really difficult to sleep with your neck at a 90 degree angle.

When we arrived at 2000 there were a few other people around that we recognised from Ben Nevis so we all set off together in the rain. The first major problem we encountered was a river crossing. The rain had been torrential all week, so this river was pretty fast and swollen. We all crossed without much trouble, but it wouldn't be fun in the dark on the way back.

Climbing the next section I was having real problems with my legs and hips which even the stupid amounts of ibuprofen couldn't hold away. The ground wasn't too rough or particularly steep compared to Ben Nevis, but I was in trouble. The rest of the team had also slowed down somewhat so I was able to keep up and make it to the next rest station. By this time we had climbing 800 meters and the weather was closing in, as was the night. We followed the lights of people coming back down to guide us to the summit, all the while telling really really bad jokes to keep us entertained. For example:

"There are 10 cows in a field, which is closest to Iraq?"
"Coo eight" *works better with a Scottish accent*
OR
"Two cows in a field, which one has foot-and-mouth disease?"
"The one that's on fire"

We got to the top in basically darkness with a visability level of around 3 meters. A couple of quick photos of the GPS and it was time to get off the hill. We had to follow each other off the hill following the really bad track with torches and the GPS to guide us down. I honestly believe that without the GPS it wouldn't have been possible to descend as quickly and safely as we did.

By the end of the climb we had the river corssing left, and I was a mess. Basically I had overexerted myself by not eating much all day, combined with the hassle of getting off the hill and dodgy hips. Consequently I fell in the river and got soaked. Luckily I had a good grip on a rock and didn't fly off downstream.

Arriving back at the car we couldn't help but notice the arrival of mountain rescue and an ambulance, probably for the people who we had passed still making the ascent in the night as we were heading down. If they didn't have GPS they could have easily got in trouble. We packed up and got ready for the trip to Wales. I felt really ill, but couldn't figure out why. The options were numerous! Half a mile in to the trip I was quite sick at the roadside. That over and done with, back off to Wales, and more sleep.

Final bit tomorrow!

Stage 2 - Ben Nevis

We arrived at Fort William around 0915, touched the water, then quickly drove to the base of Ben Nevis. I say quickly, but that doesn't include the roundabout near Morrisons that was so fun we had to go around three times. The car park at Ben Nevis is about 36m above sea level. The summit is 1344m above sea level. We were in for a big climb.

We started off fairly fast, passing all the other people on the track, but after 15 minutes of walking up rocky steps I was wishing I'd packed less. That said we were moving quickly and got up the first 500m of elevation in about 30 minutes. A couple of brief rests and 90 minutes later we were nearing the top. The summit itself looks like something from the moon - there is no greenery to be seen, just rocks. And snow. And more rocks. It was bloody windy up there too! A few photos followed to prove we got to the top, then the descent.

After flagging on the final section of the ascent I was determined not to slow everyone down on the decent so took the lead and basically ran down the scree slope. The weather continued to hold all the way down to the base, with our grand total from touching the water being 4.45, time for peak 1 - 4.30. Not bad. I went in search of ice cream in the Ben Nevis cafe thingy but couldn't find any. I was less than impressed, but by this time I couldn't feel my right foot, so decided running in to town wasn't the best plan for a cornetto. We piled in to the car and started off for Scafell Pike. According to the GPS, our ETA was 2000. Climbing in the dark isn't fun, descending is less fun.

Annnnnnnd more tomorrow!

Stage 1

The 3 peaks challenge is over for this year. After a busy day of moving everything to the new flat and tidying, I was collected by the rest of the team (Al, Barbera and JP) with all my kit and we headed off to the hotel somewhere near Loch Lomond. The hotel was ok, except they had lost our booking (apparently the website doesn't work or some other nonsense) so after a bit of complaining we headed to the bar. First we sat outside, then near the door, then inside, gradually moving further and further away from the damn midges. With breakfast planned for 0700 we retired to bed.

We awoke at 0645 for a quick wash with no illusions about staying clean over the next day, then headed off to find breakfast. 0700, no sign of life. 0715, no sign of life. At 0730 we finally got some food, already 30 minutes late in leaving. Then it was back in the car for another few hours to Fort William.

More later....