That Look!

When 'The Cat' first arrived, we believed we'd bought a delightful feline companion with clean habits and a happy disposition, until the fateful night he amused our friends by squatting under the dining table begging for Dim Sum prawns.  Previously that day, he'd been haunting birds in next door's garden and had topped up his nutritional, well-balanced diet with Peshwari naan.  After letting out a long stream of noxious gas, he got the biggest prawns and the widest berth. It was then that Alphonse formulated That Look! which loosely translated mean "You Can Really Pick 'em!"  Sadly, he had good cause to use the Raven stare again this week when I came home from Job 2.1 with the glum tidings that "due to an administrative error" we bank-staff had not been paid.

Really, it's not the financial situation that made Alphonse settle me down in front of Corrie with a large whisky but the way we were advised of our misfortune; by global email. The only word missing from the missive was "Tough!"  Anyway, it has to be said that I could have visited any of the nearby ATMs and checked but it shouldn't be necessary.  And when I finally got to my desk, Old Ironsides herself couldn't resist a dig when she quipped,
"What's your problem?  You've only got to wait a week...I've got no overtime." Coming from someone who's in a two-Mercedes relationship and off skiing this weekend, I find that a bit of a bitch but decided to keep my beak shut.  So when I continued with my normal duties, I found others in the hospital who couldn't resist rubbing salt into my festering wound.
"What are you doing here Raven?" remarked Botulism.
"My job ... what's it look like?"  Spoken more along the lines of 'What the flock's it got to do with you?'
"In your shoes, most of us wouldn't have bothered to turn up."
"Lucky me I'm old enough to make my own choices."  I'd started to seethe and, about to spontaneously combust, I escaped upstairs to Bedroom 101; my name for a virtually unused set of womens' facilities where a girl can sit and ponder the state of the universe with or without Prof Brian Cox.

Blocking my path was the management [they get everywhere, don't they?] with a deeply concerned frown stretching from temple to temple.
"Are you okay Raven?"  Enough's enough!
"YES"
"Are you sure?  We can help you out with come petty cash ..."  Too late, the cap came off the volcano.

Now don't panic, he still lives and there was no pecking out of eyes like in Hitchcock's The Birds.  Actually, I'm quite proud of myself because anyone else would have got a banging lecture on Torts and his responsibility as an employer but that would've been wasted.  Instead it all came down to one word, quietly spoken. Trust.

Tip of the Blog:  The other night there was a crash from the bathroom and a royal amount of cursing from Alphonse. When he finally descended, he mumbled something along the lines of
"We'd better go to B&Q."
"What? Now?"

"No but in the morning or I'll lose something valuable if I go to the loo in the dark."  On closer inspection, he'd snapped the toilet seat lid in half, exposing a blade-like piece of plastic quite capable of causing an orchidopexy.  Next day, I found a detailed diagram of our requirements and a twenty quid note on top of my handbag, and he'd skipped to work before I could summon my own version of "That Look!" 

Raven

 

Twin Tips

My absence from the Blog-o-sphere this last fortnight can be easily accounted for.  With an oozy beak, I finally succumbed to that precious slip of paper; the sick note.  Seven glorious days of leisure in the snuggly corner of the nest has set me right back on the road to recovery, although there were those uncharitable souls who accused me of 'milking it.'  There may be a gem of truth in those words but let me reassure you that were I of equine extraction, I would have been reconstituted into a cheap, frozen lasagne by now.

Bored witless after day one, I dedicated myself to catchup tele and hit on a brilliant documentary called "How to write a Mills & Boon" featuring Stella Duffy.  There are some folk in the writing world who pour scorn on M&B and say it's a doddle.  It isn't.  I've tried it.  Unlike the 'Fifty Shades' franchise, M&B need sixty thousand words, expertly written with sparkling dialogue and a loving, romantic story and, even for a dark-fantasy writer like me, the 'Intrigue' spin-off featuring a more alternative approach to romance makes me want to pull my feathers out.  As Stella Duffy found out; there are rules and it's the whole 'rippling muscles' scenario that requires several Cosmopolitans and a number of other cocktails.  Not Lemsip.

But I gave it a go and plumped for a hospital drama.  I make no apologies for the hunky consultant - Dirk Costigan.  An English reincarnation of Gregory House who only specialises in men's doings, and of course he's rude, arrogant, rich, clever and misunderstood - or do I mean dysfunctional in psychiatric parlance?  We've got a psychiatrist on the staff at Job 2.1 but he's generally nuts, particularly when faced with a paper shredder.  Don't ask.

Then there's the nurses.  Slim, gorgeous, an unqualified nurse - Ivana Simonov - who's up there with Florence Nightingale except she has the uncharted body of a sex siren, all wrapped up in a polyester uniform.  Desperately saving money to finish her degree whilst caring for the folks back home, she's always rubbing the Ward Sister up the wrong way but everyone does.  'Old Ironsides' as she's affectionately known is a bitter woman, star-crossed in love, who's passion could melt an ECG machine every time Mr Costigan strides over to her desk and whispers "Get me Mr Smith's sperm results, now!".

I feel an amount of drama must be added before I've got a proper story and the mounting snow gave me an idea - what if they were snowed in the hospital and had to spend the night?  [I told you antibiotics didn't suit me].  So, I filled a notebook with all of this and when I finally returned to the wards, I thought I'd better seek a bit of expert guidance from Staff Nurse Pamello over a cup of tea.  Her face was a picture.
"Is it a comedy?" she chirped.
"No.  I'm seriously writing a Mills & Boon hospital drama." Her next question floored me.
"After the snow ... are they going to be at it in one of our beds?"
"Maybe ..."  More unrestrained laughter and several biscuits followed before she could speak again.
"If we were buried twenty feet under deep snow, I'd rather tunnel out than spend a night in one of our beds unnecessarily!"  Oddly enough, while the weather was bad, those on late-to-early shifts had done precisely that, so I was curious.
"Why?"
"Ghosts Raven.  Ghosts ...."  She'd put the wind right up me and for the rest of my shift, I was looking over my shoulder.

Tip of the Blog 1:  So, should you find yourself wandering hospital corridors late at night, listen out for creaking beds.  It may not be Mrs Bird in Room 54 with a total hip replacement but the spirit of the bed itself enjoying an M&B hospital romance.
Tip of the Blog 2:  Yesterday, I was accused of being 'very direct' during a conversation over a missing piece of paper which had wasted a whole hour.  You see, we had two patients with the same name but of wildly differing sex and age, and several someones had neglected to spot the problem.  So yes, Listeria, I am direct and you are lucky as I've given up swearing for Lent.  Let's see how long I last this year.



Raven