Hmm, decided that I need a new job, but doing what I've as yet no idea, but it will come to me in a vision probably, as I'm reading the jobs pages in the local paper.

Work is pants and art is even pantier as I have been taking up my usual activity of procrastinating like a professional. I need to get focussed. I decided to look up tridents and Uri Gellar in the hope that this would promote some inspiration, but...well.....no.

I have started to produce another printing plate for tomorrow, hopefully having two or three to work with. I think I need to run with this for a little while longer, and hopefully I will get it out of my system or find something that will give me a new direction to go. Or I could just give up on the cutlery and try something else? There's a thought. But I'm not a quitter, and I don't want to be defeated by simple flatware pressed from recycled something or other. The visit to the cutlery exhibition gave me a couple of ideas and it did give me a direction to move in, towards tridents and forked tongues, but not really sure where that will take me either, or if I'll even find anything when I get there. In the meantime I'm getting really good at Pipe Mania on the DS. So not all bad there. Maybe some history of cutlery may help. At least then I have something to write into my sketchbook. I'll ponder this proposition.

I went to Nottingham yesterday to see my cousin Michele on a surprise visit, and as I was about 2 miles from her house I went past a wool shop thta I used to go to when I was a kid. Now this shop was a total jumbled fire risk of a shop, with all the stock in a big pile in one corner of the shop and a tiny old lady ready to dive into it if you asked for something. Not changed at all, except the tiny old lady is tinier and older than I remembered, but I suppose that is only to be expected, because it is a good 25 years since I last went in there. But still an Aladin's cave of knitting patterns, yarn and Butterick sewing patterns. How cool is that? I love places like that, they are so wonderful at coming up with something obscure and ancient. I just wanted to spend money on there. Oh yeah and it must be the last place in the universe that still accepts cheques but doesn't do debit/credit cards. Even cooler. Cash prefered, yay! She had some wonderful yarns for knitting, but I don't really have the time to knit these days, but maybe in the summer I may get a week or two spare. I might get something together to take on my jollies with me.

I'm now trying to find a reasonably priced campsite in Cornwall that will take dogs and not charge the earth for them. Sorry I expect camping to be cheap and I'm NOT paying £25 per dog and a deposit of £25 per dog on top. No siree. But the search continues. I'll find something and it doesn't have to be near the beach cos we have a car!

Right on with the next bit now. Doing a lino cut for printing tomorrow, hopefull it will look ok. But you never know it may well be a pile of otherworldly pants dressed in printers ink.

Hurry Up and Wait

Only one more night to do after this one, and still with no patients, no surgeries book and nothing to do, except the NVQ, which looms, looming like above my head. I did manage to get some of it done last night, but I think I want it to curl up under a rock and leave me alone for all eternity. That, however, won't get it done. I must....stop....procrastinating!

This week has felt a little dd in places, especially when I've known that someone wants to be pissed off at me for the stuff that has happened at work, but then they start warming to me again, because as we all know I am a loveable chunk of fun, and then they relax and finally remember that they are cross with me again. Funny moods all round. I think some of the wierdness has been because people were waitng for me to break down or go off sick because it's all too difficult for me to cope with. Nah, sorry, not happening.

It will get better here, and I'll settle back into the routine of work and early morning wakefulness, but for now I just need to relax and enjoy being here and geting into the job again.

The hardest part of this job is not the operations, or the loss of very poorly patients, but the sheer boredom of nothing to do. All the jobs for the week have been done and still we wait, like sentinels, for someone to need us. And when someone does need us, we ride in on our surgical green chargers and (try to) make them better. Sometimes we can't, which is never as distressing as my non-hospital friends think it is. When you know someone is probably not going to getbetter, you kind of want to stop the op before it starts, so they don't have to go through the pain and indignity of an unsuccessful op. Other times you want to do battle on their behalf, to fight the evil spirits causing their illness, the dragons creating their pain, but again, you can't, because that isn't how this world works. Shame really. Sam the pain slayer sounds like a great job. Pass me the sword and I'll battle to the death to prevent all the hurt touching you. Off I go on my little daydream quest again. Sorry. Must stick to reality more often, it would be less confusing for the people around me.

I want to get up early tomorrow so I can get to life drawing, but I know I'll not do it, the meds are getting in the way of my life now, instead of allowing me to have one. I will consult with GP about stopping. I've had enough of them now. I'm not used to sleeping for 10-12 hours at a time and still feeling tired when I get up. I't just not right. Roll on wellness. I wonder what that feels like? I digress, as is my way.

Off to find the dreaded NVQ folder. No I've not lost it, I just wish I had.

Back at Work

Here i am finally back at work, feeling in part like I've never left, but at the same time awkward as I feel a little out of place here now.

Anyway, not going to feel sorry for myself, but I am going to look at the mound of Mandatory training updates I have to do and the huge pile of NVQ work that needs to be done and feel like crying. When, if, am I going to have my own life back? Hmmm ponder for a while and then let you all know.

Must go and eat my dinner now, it's half midnite and time for tea!

More another day.

Its' it's, well it's green.

Sorry have to do a Star Trek quote from time to time. If anyone can come up with the episode number for this one, well done, prozes on a postcard!

My leg, as you may have gathered is now a grotesque mess of purple and green splodges with swelling and dry skin. It looks really attractive, if you are a zombie looking for an undead girlie.

I'm trying to take my mind off the dull ache that has settled on my leg, using Ibuprofen and distraction techniques, but alas and alack, it's not really working. It didn't help that I was working over the weekend and trying to not over stress the poor little limb too much. Thankfully when we were busy I did at least get to do some running about which made it feel substantially better. Of course in order to keep my leg moving and thus educe the discomfort I have been forced to go to meadowhell repeatedly, and as we all know, one simply cannot resist New Look for the fat girl clothes. Went to H&M and what a very small pile of poo their selection is. New Look all the way for me dahlinks. Even Lily Allen shops there so it can't be all bad.

Wanted to go to Pizza Hut for tea last night after finally seeing Slumdog Millionare, but they'd run out of food. Of course they let us sit down, menu in hand looking at the greasy offerings, but to no avail, because they had no salad, or pizza bases left. So we went to Bella Italia on Centertainment. Fabulous. Calamari made from fresh squid and the lightest crispiest batter. Melted in my mouth. Delicious Linguine Gambari, with shell on prawns and fresh linguine. What more could you want. And a bunch of nuitters too, playing tricks on each other as they work. Great atmosphere and excellent food. Happy tum, happy mum. Josh had pizza and chips, boring bugger.

I really enjoyed Slumdog, a real feel good movie and not overly sentimental. I cannot be doing with excess sentimentality, makes my eyes leak and then Josh takes the mick. The reality of life as a poor orphan was not saccharined for the masses, it was told like it is. In all the horror of children being blinded and sold into sexual slavery.

Lees of the depressing stuff, work to do, work to do. I'm going to try some monoprints today, and see how I get on with those. The results I promise will be posted somewhere in my online world.

To sleep perchance to get some shut eye

Here I am at 8 am writing in my blog when I really need to be getting to sleep. I've just spent three nights at work, after nearly six months of sickness leave, with precious little to do at work as there were no patients to take care of and all the weekly jobs ahd been done. Tried to occupy myself with homework, but there's only so much stuff I can take into work before I feel like the whole studio is coming with me. Reading is out of the question for more than about 1/2 an hour, because it makes me want to go to sleep, which is absolutely verboten.

Feeling abivalent about being back at work. Part of me is glad it hasn't really changed and that after all that time I could just slip back into it without very much effort or worry about remembering my job, and part of me thinks "Oh My God, NOTHING has changed!" Good bad and exceedingly ugly, work is a necessary evil and until I win the lottery or can get some rich art collector to be my patron, I'm stuck in the dead end paying the bills and never quite making the end of the month meet the beginning of the next. Does someone out there want to patronise my rather crap and obscure art? It all has meaning, honestly.

I really need to be getting off to bed soon, as I've been up all night and although I'm not working tonight, I do have things to do with the rest of my week off. Wednesday I'm off to York for the festival of Quilts, which will, hopefully, be fun and not too expensive. I'm a sucker for a festival bargain. Off to Leeds in a couple of weeks for tea and museums, not necessarily in that order, and thinking about saving up to go to the Knit and Stitch show in May I think it is this year. Maybe I may even get something of mine in it for next year with the Embroiderers Guild or with Knotjustitch, the textiles group I am allegedly a member of. I say allegedly, because the degree is taking so much of my time up I really don't feel like I have time for any textiles at the moment, which is frustrating as I prefer to work in textiles, I just love the feel of the fabric and the way the colours change with the play of light and blah blab blah.............(further lyrical waxing about textile arts). I really ought to put some pictures on, but I know for sure that no-one else reads this blog, so who am I doing it for? Oh yeah, me! I think that answers my question then. One of these days I'll remember how obscure and unfamous I really am, and forget to even bother writing for others to read. Hmmmm. Maybe not. (Crosses fingers and wishes for fame for art not other dubious activities).

For details of the dubious activities, please see Channel 5 website and look up "Private Parts" 3 part series. See if you can guess which one is me. Answers on a postcard to ........

Must go to bed, I'm rambling rather more than is good for me.

Night all.

PS Hope you like the picture. It's one of mine. I got a distinction for that project. And its a textile!

Ouch..cont.

Look at that for a big bruise, and it's still getting bigger, as it deep bruising, apparently and will take several days to all come out. All I know is, its big, its sore and it looks increasingly impressive.

Ouch!

On the way into college yesterday morning I was walking along having a jolly conversation with Jackie the third year when, down like a sack of the proverbial went I, landed square on my knee, and ended up soaked through to the skin on my bum and all down my left leg and I now have the most gigantic bruise you could imagine on my left knee. It is sore, and it only stops aching when I walk around, now is that fair? It means it starts to throb like a bitch when I lie down and try to go to sleep, and I had to go to Meadowhell this afternoon to alleviate my discomfort. I was forced to buy new boots, rather fetching ones if I do say so, but forced nevertheless by the rabid consumerism that is Meadowhell shopping centre, Sheffield.

Other news, I didn't get chance to Twitter yesterday and so spent an hour catching up on all the twitters from all the wonderful people who have actual lives that I follow. It is voyeuristic I admit, but when one is sad, lonely, single and skint, one only has voyeurism, because, well, its cheap!

I have singularly failed to do any work today, which means that I will have to spend all of spare time over the weekend catching up with todays lack of work. I might get something done before beddie time, but not much. I must edit the kit I take in with me too, as I've been carrying around a box of crayons I haven't used once at college, and I've been there for three months. Mmmmm needs a rethink and let's dig out the old pencil case.

All to say for now, I'm off to play with my pencils and prepare my kit for the morrow.

The day after the return of the prodigal

Well he's still as grumpy as he ever used to be, grumbling away for most of the night, but still I'm glad he's home. Chaos tried very hard to get close to him in the hope that maybe, just maybe, Thunder would sit still while Chaos practised his love moves on him. But no, Thunder just whacked him, grumbled and Chaos decided to try them on my hair. Bit me and everything. Vets next week, to remove the offending articles. We're having none of that in my house, plus cat semen can't be good for the hair.

On to more normal things, spent £35 in Hobbycraft on pastel pencils to finish 1 drawing. All that for just one drawing. Oh well, I'll use them again. Not really making as much progress as I wanted today, but I'll warm up to it soon. I have done one fine pencil drawing and a rough pastel sketch, and I'm half way through a finer pastel drawing, so I will get there today. Just not sure if I'm doing much exploring of the subject.

Had a huge bowl of leftover soup for lunch, followed by a rather tasteless orange. Why are oranges so disappointing? I want to eat sweet juicy oranges, not dried up bland ones. Still full of food and trying to get focussed and motivated. Maybe just a couple of games of tetris then?