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