Oh dear!

Yesterday I had a phone call at work. At first I thought it was a school ringing to book a software fair, then it became evident that I was being asked to do a day's supply teaching on Monday. I am on the supply list in Wrexham but this was the first time they had contacted me. Against my better judgement I agreed to do it but within ten minutes, battling with increasing feelings of panic, I rang them back and said I wasn't available after all. The truth is that, since leaving my teaching job, with great relief, last summer, I have never felt the least desire to go back into the classroom, but actually it goes much deeper than that and I am left asking myself how on earth the job and its pressures have left me feeling incapable of ever standing in front of a class again.

To sleep, perchance to dream

Yesterday morning, I had to be woken by Keith at 7.45, today, it was 7.30, even though I had not had any late nights this week and have not had any great problems sleeping during the night. The fact is that, at the moment, I could sleep for England (all-right, Wales then - or both!)
I have long been of the opinion that humans should be able to hibernate during the winter - as in stay in, watch TV and videos, read etc. but as that is not a viable choice unless you happen to have won the lottery, I have to get up in the morning and go to work and, to be fair, I haven't had a major problem with this in previous years. This time last year, I was getting up at 5.30am and leaving at 6.30 to slug it down the motorway to Liverpool every day. Now I struggle to open my eyes before 7.30!
Mind you, this week, there is an extra factor. In my Gestalt course, talk last weekend turned to dreaming. Gestalt counsellors do sometimes work with the client's dreams but my problem is that I rarely remember any, so it was suggested that I keep a pad and pen by my bedside and jot down anything I can remember when I wake up. So far, so good, but I have a habit of waking up several times during the night, which meant that I was waking up, suddenly remembering that I should be making notes on any dreams I had had and then lying there trying to recall fast dissipating images from Dreamworld or worrying because I couldn't remember anything, which might mean that I hadn't been dreaming or, maybe, that my dreams were so boring that they vanished instantly from my subconscious.
Which is worse, I ask myself - not dreaming at all or having boring dreams?
AND will I eventually get so good at recalling my dreams that I spend half the night awake and writing copious notes about them - in which case I still won't be able to get up in the morning. Maybe I'd better just keep on doing the Lottery!

Camaro spare parts

Joy of joys!
You remember that I was suspicious of Keith being extra nice to me? Remember I suspected that I might, at some future date, be required to give house room to bits of Camaro? Well, the chickens have come home to roost - it's pay-back time! This photo depicts Keith and Giles salivating over an Edelbrock inlet manifold running a 350cfm 4 barrelled holley carb. which should give them an estimated 1200hp along with the customised headers they have bought. So now you know. Bet you're all wildly jealous too. I was invited to polish these items and, as promised, the second word was 'off'!!
What you don't know is that the first photo was of Keith licking the chrome air intake but I refused to publish that one!

Hospital cleanliness

Looking at this it seems that the powers that be have finally caught up with what anyone with half a brain has known for the past several years. Contracting out the cleaning of our hospitals has led to a drop in hygiene standards which is unacceptable. Of course, it is a pity they did not realise that these standards are unacceptably low before the MRSA superbug had killed an average of 5000 people each year, but there you are.
It has been obvious for years that withdrawing responsibility for cleaning from hospitals themselves was a big mistake. In the era of 'Matron' when she and ward sisters had direct responsibility over the cleaners, who were appointed and employed by the hospital, there was an incentive to keep cleaning standards high - woe betide those cleaners who didn't measure up! Now, cleaning companies bid for contracts, with the lowest priced winning the contract, the cleaners are given inadequate levels of training and supervision with unrealistic timescales.
I watched the same thing happening in school, although, obviously with far less damaging consequences. Once cleaning was contracted out, the caretakers (site managers as they are known as these days) no longer had responsibility for the cleaners as they had previously, supervisors were conspicuous by their absence and cleaning standards plummeted. In addition, what had formerly apparently needed 3 weeks to do in the summer break, can, it appears, now be done in 3 or 4 days.
In hospitals, the drop from 90,000 to 55,000 hospital cleaners over the last 15 years could only have added to the drop in standards.
Health Secretary John Reid, is quoted as saying that he has made it plain to hospital executives that 'cleanliness is not an optional extra.' Try telling that to the families who have lost a relative from MRSA or to those whose lives and health have been ruined by it.

Welsh sheep

Although it is not obvious in the photo, these sheep are on quite a steep hill near Llangollen. It is not generally known that, in common with Yorkshire sheep, Welsh sheep who live in hilly countryside have, over many generations, evolved a means of coping with standing on sloping ground by having two legs on one side of the body shorter than those on the other. As a general rule the legs on the left side are the shorter ones, although there is a small number of so-called right-sided sheep, whose right legs are shorter. As there are so few of these, they are held to be extremely valuable and are often kidnapped and sold to collectors for hugely inflated sums of money. Not a lot of people know that! ;)