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Sunday, June 22nd, 2008
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10:27 pm - Back to the big smoke
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The air in Edinburgh smells completely different when I've been away: dark, a little disgusting, though my nose quickly acclimatises - or blocks up, which comes to much the same thing. I loved seeing the puffins, though would prefer them not to make their burrows on the edge of cliffs (it's a bit hard on the nerves, seeing people venture to the edge and hopefully not beyond). I just saw the fulmers nesting from afar, no great loss (vicious brutes) and got very tired of hearing corncrakes, but at least I've worked out the boundaries of their empire. Unfortunately, the house is more or less in the middle, so has a resident corncrake in the reeds at the bottom of the back garden, and a visiting corncrake, which crawls down the stream towards the front garden, and a very enterprising corncrake, which probably comes down the trackway, through the front gate and squats under the rose bush, ready to make that rusty gate sound far too early in the morning.
There was a basking shark, apparently, but by the time I went to look for it, there was a shark shaped space of empty sea; nevertheless, I managed to see some seal babies (very fat and indolent) and the father (extremely thin and hungry).
Back to work proper tomorrow, but work may be postponed until every male in the office (there are many) has commented on how I failed to predict the winning football teams. They were just so frustrated and irritated when I was winning this (they know I know nothing about football and care less: I think my boss just anticipated me being joint bottom, as usual, when he invited me to join the team).
I also have my twice yearly review to look forward to. This mightn't be fun, as I've had difficulty feeling sufficiently motivated to be dedicated to my work after the fractured arm.
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| Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
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5:53 am - Quality goes shooting
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This was a bonding exercise: shooting electronic prairy dogs with the lightest plastic rifle I've ever handled. My reaction speed is exceedingly slow, a lengthy 2.5 seconds, so I had to resort to strategy and aim the rifle at a burrow, waiting for the creatures to come out and pose before I blew them to pieces. Also that's easier on the arm than swinging the rifle all over the place and blazing at anything that moves on the screen.
Not sure what to think of work right now. All my work got redistributed while I was off, but I'm not getting it all back, just getting new stuff of the "no one else wants to do it" variety. On the plus side, this means considerably less crawling down air conditioning vents (good) and considerably more equipment inspections (not so good). And there's an awful lot of stuff needing to be done at anti-social times, which is really eating into my spare time: I hate having to phone up and cancel things.
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| Thursday, April 17th, 2008
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11:47 pm - Tai chi the healer?
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I'm very reluctant to admit to this, but my arm's been more or less pain free since the weekend when I went off to do tai chi and energy work and I'm beginning to feel more or less normal. Which makes me wonder if there is actually something to the chi forces wandering around your body in particular and the universe in general. This is very worrying ...
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| Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
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11:17 pm - Back to normal ...
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Hmmm ... the strength is coming back and my arm is tending towards the ache rather than the pain, so I guess that's good. Went away for a tai chi weekend down to Dumfries and Galloway - slightly more interesting than intended, as there was an accident just south of Hawick, so had to take a road on the edge of the world, where there were more pheasants than cars and more rabbits than people. Then this evening I had an unexpected treat - a chance to see "Fiddler on the Roof" and a meal out at the unfortunately called Slug and Lettuce (but the food is good and it's convenient for the cinema or theatre).
Great jubilation at work today: since I came back, I've been clawing my work back and have got slightly more than I bargained for. Part of the new stuff is a lot of inspection for a control freak, to the extent that everything has to be practically scrutinised individually with a magnifying glass. Today, the control freak made an error; basically, if he hands it out, he has to take it! [I go off into a secluded corner and dance in a smug and frenzied way].
I start work at 7am; the control freak is in at 6.30am and considers people coming in after 8am to be effete, wimpish and generally undesirable.
Absent mindedly put on one of the VIP white coats today - I should have known something was wrong, as it was pristine, ironed and starched to within an inch of its life ...
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| Sunday, March 30th, 2008
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11:04 pm - More cooking
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Venison stew, more pear and ginger muffins, smoked mackerel and feta samosas. I assume that my pass is nearby, as I managed to get in on Friday for my occupational health review. Life is going back to normal tomorrow morning and there's not much use me saying I don't want normality again and I'm not all that keen on smoked mackerel either. Talking about pain in my arm is boring, pass the painkillers, also the alarm for tomorrow morning.
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| Saturday, March 29th, 2008
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7:02 pm - Back to work
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Back to work on Monday - apparently my bone has mended (good), but the cuff muscles (they're at the shoulder, not the wrist, as I'd thought) haven't mended as they ought to, which means either painful exercise for the foreseeable future or the same followed by surgery. Doing the exercises hurts, though I sometimes think that everything hurts.
In the meantime, my job title has changed, I'm being moved to a different project (hopefully on a temporary basis, but I suspect I might end up there permanently, and on shifts as well plus weekends unless I'm very fast on being elusive)and one of the quality leads has got a shadow on his brain (he's only 40, poor guy), what is it about quality in this place, it's a really dangerous occupation.
I did some cooking today, the usual failures. Pear and ginger muffins which stuck to the paper cases; banana and almond muffins which were quite tolerable; smoked mackerel pate which I think is quite nice, though no one else in the house likes smoked fish (all the more for me ...), partridge breast casserole which was ok, though I had to buy wine from the housekeeping after vandalising a special vintage, hardbread which was really hard (do I really want to break a tooth or do I want to offend the ducks in the Botanics by chucking it at them?)
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| Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
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8:39 pm - Gorse: warm coconut smell
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One of the things I really appreciate about walking is the smell of gorse: it's a warm coconut smell. Normally, I find this in Holyrood Park, but this time I went down Roslin Glen which was absolutely beautiful. I think I went the wrong way at Bilston Viaduct (a bridge in the middle of nowhere, looking over a sea of tree tops), so ended up in Loanhead, rather than Lasswade. Anyway, I went through Burdiehouse Park, which is very nice in the day time - probably not so much at night - and then ended up at physiotherapy, which went quite well. I have graduated to a green elastic exerciser from yellow, which seems to show that my arms getting back to normality (apparently 90% mobility, though I'm not happy about supporting my weight on it). Tomorrow I'll be carrying weights, trying cycling, swimming, gym, hope the weather cooperates.
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| Monday, March 17th, 2008
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6:56 pm - Pain, agony, aches
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Aaaah, overdid things at the weekend. I walked to Corstorphine this afternoon and my hips hurt so now I'm sitting clutching a hot water bottle and resting, rather resentfully, kin front of the tv (naturally, with 42 stations to choose from, there's nothing I particularly want to see).
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| Saturday, March 15th, 2008
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11:40 pm - Very long walk
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Well, I did my first twenty mile walk, though judging from multimap and my total exhaustion, it may have been a bit more. On the other hand, I knew I could do that, having done it last year as part of my training.
Tomorrow is the Edinburgh half marathon and, judging from the no parking signs, the runners will go all the way to Musselburgh (poor things). I'm thinking of casually being nearby to assess their technique.
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| Monday, March 10th, 2008
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4:54 pm - Postcard from Iona
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Not the most comfortable journey, possibly because I was ultra cautious after many agitated messages warning me to check that the ferry was running. However, everything worked until I got to Fhionnphort to find no sign of the ferry; when in doubt, however, have a cup of tea, but it was still a relief when the ferry poked its nose and cautiously came out of Bull Hole (this is a safe haven where the ferry normally goes at night, and it had absolutely no business to be there at two in the afternoon). The crossing was stormy, but with the sort of contrary weather typical of Iona, it's now extremely calm, a beautiful spring day when the rest of the country is bracing itself for storms.
Wildlife so far has consisted of loads of oyster catchers, a solitary and lonely shag, far more wrens than anyone would expect, one robin, pigeons wherever I look and a rabbit out in the open in the middle of the day.
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| Friday, March 7th, 2008
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10:12 pm - Go ice truckers
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Watched the last of the ice truckers tv programme, though there is a hint that there may be more in a fortnight's time (why? the road across the lakes has melted, so there's no point in having any further programmes) to get into the right frame of mind for travelling to Iona. Normally I wouldn't bother much and assume that all the connections mesh together, but when I get an agitated and misspelled email from the Iona end about lack of ferries, I get a little agitated too. The trip to Iona can be broken down into ten steps of varying levels of boredom; the ferry to Iona is step nine or so, so the last thing I want to do is get to Fhionnphort then find I can't get over.
Realistically, I suspect that the worst I'll have to put up with is a night or so in Fhionnphort until the weather subsides and I have to phone again from Oban to check the situation, so I should have the option of just having a day trip to Oban. I am sullenly preparing for being in a bad temper and trying not to show it.
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| Thursday, March 6th, 2008
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6:46 pm - The results of too many tv cookery programmes
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Partly as a reaction to watching these tv cookery programmes, partly from a lack of stimulation, I've actually been cooking lately, and some of the results have been surprisingly pleasant. I made chicken in coconut milk (very pleasing) and today did a more tomato based game dish with pasta.
Tomorrow, I'm going to try cottage pie, probably, then off to Iona which is not a gastronomic place at all. The diet there veers from porridge to brawn stew, which may explain part of the reason why I'm always pleased to get back.
There are two good things about Iona though: my father always politely eats whatever I cook (within certain very boring parameters, so English food of the 1950s only) and I'm normally starving after tramping through the (many) Iona bogs, so my taste buds turn off. Also, my father's staple ingredient is crystallised ginger - he may run out of more normal staples like onions, cheese, bread, cornflower or caraway seeds (thank goodness) but there's always crystallised ginger. That makes life much more bearable.
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| Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
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8:41 pm - I chopped an onion!
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I managed to chop onions not just today but yesterday too - today's cookery was a chorizo and lentil stew which has been bubbling away for most of the day keeping me company. Not just onions either - I can chop celery and potatoes as well, so I'm quite pleased about this. I did manage to chop pears for my porridge this morning, but that doesn't need a great deal of skill or force.
I'm trying to use my left arm naturally, not just keep it curled up against my body in a protective manner. This works half the time, the other half I'm about half way doing something when my brain kicks in and remembers that it's going to hurt (this normally happens just when it does start hurting).
Tomorrow, it's physio and I have to go into work to see my boss so he doesn't get into more trouble. I missed the physio appointment on Friday (completely by accident) so was lucky to be given another chance. It's going to be a busy week, I have to go to tai chi on Wednesday (reluctantly) and to the dentist on Friday (even more reluctantly).
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| Saturday, March 1st, 2008
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9:45 am - Quality is a dangerous occupation
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Considering that the essence of quality is getting things right first time and devising processes to make it easier for people to do things right than to do things wrong, it's rather interesting to consider the mortality rate in the department.
In the last year one person has died, one has had a brain heamorrhage. One person had a mystery virus which completely sapped his strength for three months (as if having three teenage children wasn't enough to do that), someone's just keeled over with a heart attack(he phoned his wife and said he didn't feel well). One software engineer broke his ankle falling off the toilet, another ruined his knees through years of football followed by reflooring his teenage daughter's bedroom and now I'm classified as "long term sick" due to the broken arm and torn muscles.
My boss has also just got into trouble - apparently he is supposed to phone me every week to make sure I'm progressing and visit me at home after a month, flowers and chocolate optional. I'm torn between wondering if this is the caring side of working for a multinational or checking that I'm not malingering.
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| Thursday, February 28th, 2008
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9:27 pm - Doctor customer skills: null points
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Tales of broken bones:
My dentist said he operated with a hand in plaster.
My hairdresser said he cut hair with one broken finger taped to the next finger along (but he couldn't manage blow drying).
My friend said she had a fractured skull, cheekbones, nose, ribs, leg, foot and fingers, hopefully not all at one time, due to a violent marriage.
And my hospital doctor said, cheerfully "You may not regain full use of your arm", obviously unaware that I was scoring her customer service skills(totally non existent) and that I don't really take kindly to negative comments like that.
My GP doctor took one look at me and gave me a sick note for another month: he explained that when I fell, I tore some major muscles and did I want him to prescribe me some strong painkillers.
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| Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
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8:32 am - Prepare for the day of doom
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That's tomorrow when I have to go to the hospital for an x ray (to confirm that my arm is actually healing), then have to face the doctor to see when I have to go back to work. In an ideal world, I'd rather like another week off, but I feel rather pessimistic about it. I suppose I'd settle for a compromise by which I start work part way through the week so I don't have to deal with a complete week.
So this is my last day of freedom which makes it all the more puzzling that I'm watching gmtv. Of course, it's fascinating that there was an earthquake yesterday and a 13 year old has qualified for the Olympics for diving, but I shall have to wrap up and go out soon, so as not to waste the time.
I also have to start going out at night - at present I'm not precisely afraid, but rather twitchy about going out at night.
Good news: More use to my arm, can carry light weights
Bad news: Twisting is extremely painful, I can't even think about climbing out of a swimming bath and have nightmares about falling backwards. Still tired very easily
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| Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
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11:59 pm - Jack the Ripper weather
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Hellishly misty today. It was vaguely fascinating walking counter clockwise round Arthur's Seat, firstly watching the immediate surroundings floating on a sea of mist and occasionally glimpses of a blurred road or loch below; as I started going down, the situation was reversed, by seeing the traffic, but seeing the higher slopes completely immersed in white wetness. Going out this evening, though, was downright unpleasant, as it was wet and clingy, I couldn't see much, and I'm getting increasingly unwilling to go out at night at all. Various figures loomed out of the mist and passed by: it was scary and not nice at all.
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| Sunday, February 17th, 2008
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8:23 pm - More progress
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Just as well, as I've got the physio tomorrow and need to show that my arm's getting better (I want to get back to swimming again).
Good news: managed to chop an onion rather clumsily.
Bad news: pretty well constant headaches, still pain in the arm and I have absolutely no idea where my passport is. Even braved work to search through my drawers and found to my annoyance that the quality guy who normally throws most of his work on to me (because he's a lazy fat git) is using MY desk while I'm on sick leave. However, although indignant, not indigant enough to go back one minute before my sick leave expires.
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| Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
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7:57 pm - Progress - thanks to tv cooking programmes
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Well, I cooked an elementary meal - pasta with tomato and mushroom sauce, salad with lime juice dressing, rye bread which was very nice, though there was no one about to eat it, bar me. Obviously the many viewings of "Come Dine with Me" are working - I had a rather confused dream featuring that programme on Sunday night.
So, triumphs are: can do up shoe laces (see, I KNEW it was an easy break - it took me three months to do that last time I broke an arm), cut a lime, walked to South Queensferry, carried books back from Blackhall Library and shopping (I didn't think I'd manage it, it was very difficult).
Drawbacks are: I still get tired very easily, still need painkillers at night (otherwise I wake up every two hours with leg cramps, of all things), the shoulder pain is a constant companion, the physio exercises suck.
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| Friday, February 8th, 2008
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8:07 pm - I survived physio
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Hmmm, the attitude from physiotherapists has changed (fortunately) in the last twentyish years, so I didn't get tortured, but did get given some exceptionally unpleasant exercises to do (imagine twisting your bad arm up towards the top of your back). I was quite pleased with what I could actually do when trying to impress someone, but it's by no means perfect, I guess I maybe have 20% mobility with my arm. The physiotherapist reckons that I may get another two weeks off (hurray!) and that I may be able to swim in another two week's time.
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