A Great British Soggy Bottom

The joy that is Bake Off has gone from our screens for another year but memories of the hospital's technical challenge day will sustain me through the coming months.  To raise money for Macmillan, we were given a choice of two Mary Berry classic recipes; a chocolate roulade or a tarte citron requiring thin, shortcrust pastry sans soggy bottom.  My pasty-making skills have been dogged by 'hot hands' and a lifelong aversion of cooking with lard, hence I opted for the roulade. To be fair to Alphonse, culinary skills in the Nest have been greatly enhanced by the digital scales he brought me; I was touched by the gift as he can't cook and also his Virgoan self even strains the sauce from baked beans.  Oh yes ... and people call me 'alien'.

I felt the need to trial the roulade and set out to find a regulation 33x23cm swiss roll tin in John Lewis.  Shouts of "How much?" and "Fifteen quid!" could be heard throughout the Retail Cathedral as I inspected the only one on offer in the cookware department.  Instead, I opted to use the battered tin I've had for a decade and scaled down the recipe according to my meagre mathematical talents.  I melted the chocolate, beat eggs with sugar, made a meringue and lobbed it into the oven quite pleased with myself until I inspected my hair in the mirror.  My new Next top was strafed with the dense chocolate sauce which even the Bosch loaded Vanish couldn't remove.

I was consciously un-clenching my buttocks whilst waiting for it to cool; not out of nervous tension you understand but I'd injured myself the previous week trying to dismount Betty during a rainstorm.  My right gluteus maximus had gone into spasm thus giving me a soggy bottom.  Still, when the chocolate confection was cool enough for its double cream filling, I thought it needed to look a little less bland so I added a molten core of blackcurrant jam from Lidl and drizzled M&S berry sauce all over the double cream before rolling it up.  It looked marvellous with lots of ooze coming out of the centre.  I'd already alerted Them Next Door and between us we demolished 1,000 calories before tea time with Alphonse bagging the jammy end.  Sensibly, they elected to go for a five mile hike before bedtime and with hindsight, we probably should have joined them.

To raise extra cash, I'd opted to make two of Delia Smith's finest bakes; a lemon curd sponge and a ginger traybake.  So, in Great British Bake Off style, I had a plan for the evening's baking activities and a Tick List, and had stupidly decided to make the roulade early and keep it in the fridge overnight.  Even Mary Berry says this is okay.  It is not! As part of the plan, I'd been to the pound shop and bought a special carrier, serviettes, a pink cake knife and a silver cake board for the tray bake, which Alphonse propped up on a damp tea towel.  Minutes later, it had sucked up all the available moisture in the kitchen and had trebled in size.  It barely fitted in the bin.  

By 9.00 pm, my Tick List was going well.  Lemon sponge - tick.  Ginger cake - tick.  Pasta for tea - erm possibly - tick.  Chocolate roulade - no tick.  It had spread very evenly over the shallow tin and cascaded over the top, coating the oven with goop.  Still, nothing that couldn't be saved with a sharp knife and a bucket of cream, unlike the lemon sponge.  After a restless night, I got up at 6.00 am for a cuppa and found Alphonse inspecting the matching lemon circles.  

"Don't touch it!"  I barked.

"I'm not touching it ... I'm trying to lift it."  By profession, Alphonse was a Metallurgist before taking a powder and joining the Civil Service, so he knows when a mixture has gone 'out of kilter'.  Granted, a huge crucible of stainless steel isn't quite on the same scale as a lemon drizzle cake but the principle is the same.  It looked unusually pale, so I gave the sponge the 'Paul Hollywood finger of shame' and conceded.

"It's like concrete."  Alphonse agreed.

"There's no sponge-effect going on there."

"But I used the standard six, six, six and three method plus the juice of a lemon."  I'd done the maths in my head so what could go wrong?  How could it go in the oven weighing just over 20 ounces and now weigh double that?  Alphonse put his razor sharp beak at the centre of the problem.

"That's not cake, it's ballast!"  He handed me a coffee and stalked off in the direction of the bathroom.

I dressed swiftly and with a heavy heart drove to Tesco in the bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic.  If you don't know, they do a lovely vanilla cheesecake and with some M&S mini meringues and a long squirt of lemon sauce, I transformed it into a showstopper.  Yes of course I confessed to the adjudicators at work but they didn't care as long as it could be sold for charity.  So I lined up my traybake, now on an old plate, and my roulade safe in its special carrier along with the others.  As I undid the clips the handle snapped off and I fumbled it.  Everyone watched in horror as my cake landed edge down in a soggy heap but remarkably, a dusting of icing sugar hid most of the carnage.  The theatre manager looked utterly smug and pointed to his efforts on the plinth.

"I got up at five this morning to make mine."  His had cherries all along the top.

"The rules say we're not supposed to add fruit to it."  Had I misread the instructions?

"Soddit! It looked a bit ordinary so who cares as long as it's tasty?" In a state of shock, I went to yoga to contemplate the infinite.  Apparently, I had won third prize out of three contestants, and the nurses told me it tasted great even without the blackcurrant sauce.

Tip of the Beak:  By the weekend, no-one had mentioned the ginger cake.  I even quizzed the Physio who was doing acupuncture on my buttock.  Did anyone buy it, eat it, or had it gone in the macerator?  No-one seemed to know and naturally I assumed its kick-ass, spicy taste was too hot to handle and I'd poisoned half the theatre staff, until one of the management stopped me by the first floor sluice.

"Could I have the recipe for your ginger cake Raven?"  Result.

"I wondered where that went ..."

"Well I bought one slice then went back for the rest to take home.  I want to make one myself ..."

I dropped my voice to a whisper as if confessing to a crime, "It's not a Mary Berry.  It's a Delia Smith!"  She raised an elegantly plucked eyebrow and reached over, patting me hard on the shoulder.  

"You need to get out more."

She is right of course and, contrary to all rumours, I won't be entering Bake Off Series 7.  Paying close attention to the emotional final episode last week, it was plain to see that Ian had lost weight since the first episode which is quite a feat considering all that fat, sugar and cream he must have consumed. Personally, I couldn't stand the stress or the clothing bills because my Next top has just followed the carrier and cake board into the bin.  Lucky I didn't buy the swiss roll tin then?

Raven

A Grand Old Opera

I've started to see the time I spend working in a hospital as if I'm inhabiting a grand Opera.  Not a soap opera as we're not allowed to use soap, only skin-peeling hand sanitiser which blisters my skin with overuse, but a huge and riotous comedy piece of theatrical nonsense with a list of characters complex enough to make Messrs Verdi and Strauss envious to the core.  We even have music in some quarters but it's only in the background and mainly provided by Saga FM.  Here are some of the current bodies on stage:

Prince Theodore:  a consultant surgeon who is seen by many as The Massive Ego in the ENT department.  I've been there for four years and have never seen this chap in the flesh, with or without his theatre gown.  I suspect he is a tenor, and could command a sizeable audience while able to puff out his chest and declare his power in a grand duet with the heroine of the piece.  And yet, a storm in the sea of life has sent his secretary away on a sabbatical for three months.  Needing a replacement pretty damn quick for the missing assistant, he has nabbed the one person in the hospital least suitable for the role.

Princess Valkyrie:  The ultimate Fat Lady.  Ubiquitous in nature with a foot in every department, she admits she's a great secretary although one who has never learned to type.  After two weeks of correcting her work and explaining the wrongness of slipping into block capitals in the middle of a letter, I gave up.  Without consultation of any kind, she has been given a desk in our office and granted three months' work to get Prince Theo's stuff in order.  This means one of us has to give up our desk i.e. me.  Apparently, there was a meeting while I was on leave which I would have attended, but they chose to move the time so I couldn't go.  So, I have been banished to the frozen wastes of an old desk in Sterile Services.

The Management:  You are familiar with these characters already in the form of the Andrex Puppy and the Fruit Bat, and with Matronella appearing triumphant in the background accompanied by a chorus of nurses, they make up The Three Little Maids.  By email, the Andrex Puppy asked me last week if I would consider applying for the full time post as advertised around all the bulletin boards and agencies in the area.  I was undecided for a day until a moment of clarity arrived in the nick of time.  We had a visit from The Management later that day, backed up by the Fat Engineer, who asked questions about our office and how many of us serviced the twenty four consultants.  There's no need for a magician or a psychic in this opera as it rapidly transpired they wanted our room returned to a bedroom, along with the rest of the first floor, before the sun set.

Raven with Attitude:  Me, I guess.  And I can't join in with the soprano songs because I'm at least a mezzo soprano if not lower.  At school, every hymn we sang in assembly was a struggle in the wrong key and 'Hark the Herald Angels' is a non-starter at Christmas.  Only last Saturday, I was croaking along to the Last Night of the Proms and when the vast collective voices in the Albert Hall hit the high note in Jerusalem, I reached for the throat spray.  No high arias for me, thank you.

At the end of the first act, I am at the corner of the stage, singing for my supper.  A tear-jerking number, I declare myself sans d'argent et pauvre and decline to apply for the job I've done easily for the past few years.  Clutching at my heart, I know that Princess Valkyrie has been given the nod and the promise of a whopping payrise, and even if I did the best interview in the history of job hunting, she would still be given the starring role.  I am cast out into the cold after being reassured I still have a valuable role to play.

The Fool:  If not me, this has to be the Director of Operations.  Not surgical in nature, he's more financial and is in charge of playing chess with the personalities.  Manipulative in nature, he sings in the baritone range with great expression as he stalks around the place, hiding in plain sight alluding to the bloody dagger secreted up his sleeve.  He is a man of dark deeds.

The IT Guy:  He only appears briefly when Princess Valkyrie asks for her equipment to be mended.  He hums, head down and fluffs his lines and then disappears, leaving her in distress.  From the wings, he sings a haunting melody as there is another job to partly finish.  When the stage lights dim to darkness, I like to think he's a male stripper in his spare time and wears a monkey thong.

Skulking at the back with some members of The Chorus of Disapproval, I attended a briefing just to let us know how we are doing and what's coming up next.  Act II mainly follows Act I, but what do I know  When The Fool and Matronella had completed a mercifully short duet, there was a lull in the performance requiring audience participation.  'Any questions' they trilled.  The elderly matriarch standing next to me had to get another verse off her chest.
"The government is enforcing payment of the national living wage from April next year.  Will we be getting it?"  The Fool answered truthfully.
"In the great scheme of things, it's an insignificant amount of money and yes, definitely, you will."
Thus the chorus responded at full volume.  "If it's so insignificant ... can we have it now?"
'No." Replied The Fool.

It seems The Management are about to completely rewrite the third act with a smaller chorus and some duff songs and in the medical secretaries department, I'm gearing up for the Fat Lady to start singing.

Tip of the Beak:  Act III opens at dawn on a Saturday morning.  I have to escort patients up to their bedrooms at 6.30am but the time on the script says 6.45am.  In computers, this is called an 'interface'.  We are very bad at interfacing.  On the whole, The Chorus of Disapproval are lovely girls but lacking initiative in the main.  All ten sets of patients were early but none had been admitted and the stage area was getting bad tempered and crowded.  The Administrator was fluttering around checking the automatic doors worked.  Open, close, open close. Yes indeed.  Frustrated, I asked her a question.
"Why cannot you get your 4rse in gear and put these guests on the computer?"
"They are early."
"So what happened to efficiency?"
She trilled back at me.  "It is only six forty four."
"Count Alexei and his interpreter have to go upstairs NOW."
"They are still early.  They cannot go upstairs."  Ignoring the score, she inspected her new nail job for an entire 60 seconds.  I filled my lungs and let rip.
"Yes they can ... Yes they can ... Yes they CCCAAANNN!!!
Now where did I put that tin helmet with the cow horns?

Raven

The Summer of 2015

It has to be faced.  The summer of 2015 is racing away like Guy Martin on his favourite motorbike.  Rapidly disappearing into the distance are this season's weddings, barbecue invitations are winding down, my tomatoes are massed in clumps of green gobstoppers which will never ripen, and I picked this week to put my talons up in the garden, just as our neighbours have started on a massive DIY project.  By the noise and dust, I think they may be moving into the attic; theirs or ours, I'm not sure.  And against all the reasons of common decency, they were still at it at 2.30 am on Monday morning.  I was woken by a pounding noise on their front door, created by a bloke in socks and boxers who shouted some very influential words.
"It's half past two in the morning and if you don't stop hammering, I'm coming back with an axe."  Unsure of how the axe would add silence to my world, I pulled a pillow over my head to muffle any further shouting and within minutes, the air was still and all noise had evaporated, leaving The Nest in blissful peace once more.  How long this will last is uncertain.

It has been an uncertain few weeks at work too, mainly as we are gearing up for a massive inspection which requires 100% effort on everyone's part.  No-one is immune.  All sellotape and animal pictures have been removed.  I've been to meetings to tell me about other compulsory meetings, read at least a thousand irrelevant emails, completed my on-line training in my own time and concentrated very hard on staying employed.  We've also hired new staff, mainly to replace those lost souls who didn't pass muster.  I'm genuinely unsure how this testing was done but thankfully, no-one approached my desk with a latex glove and a mean look in their eye.  Down in the medical records bunker, the ratio of staff is nine women to one man.  And that man - Bob - is the frankly-bloody-irritating-post-graduate-son-of-a-consultant who is as lazy as a sloth.  He is leaving and is training his own replacement, which can only end in tears.

The new kid "A" had applied on line for a job in Theatres, genuinely wanting to spend his summer of 2015 hauling around bins full of toxic waste and portering beds.  He hoped, he said, it would give him some moral fibre and help in his transition to life as a medical student.  Except his mandatory checks hadn't come through in time and no-one had found the balls to tell him this nugget of information.  On his first day, he was shoved through the doors of medical records to start on the mountains of filing; surely the lad's equivalent of being fed to a pride of lions.  His first words were classic.
"Why am I here?"  I shrugged.  "A" consulted an A4 sheet of instructions.
"I'm looking for Donna ... erm."  His voice trailed off as he looked around at the blank faces of nine women, all old enough to be his granny.  "I'm on Candid Camera aren't I?" he whined.
"We don't allow cameras in here but I wish I'd got mine." Helga piped up from the desk at the back wall. "Your face is a picture of pain."
In the nick of time, "A" was rescued by Bob.  He gave him a manly handshake and introduced him to us Grannies.  After a brief tour of the hospital and its facilities, he started him first on basic filing thus.
"This goes here, that goes there, the pile never goes down.  That's it for the next six weeks."
"What has this got to do with my job in Theatres?" Sensing "A" was on the verge of tears, Bob made him a soothing cup of tea and told him to 'think of the money'.  Something I'm doing as I start the hunt for a new job too.

I love the medical secretary stuff.  No, really, I do.  But now my younger, slimmer, more ambitious colleague has quit to 'go private', the muppets in charge have decided to fill the gap left in our workload with a clinical Psychiatrist.  Nothing too taxing there, but this one specialises in abuse cases and I'm uncertain again about my future.  Surely, I should be allowed to choose to work on distressing cases, shouldn't I?  Apparently not.

Tip of the Beak:  A brilliant antidote to life is comedy, and this week's film of choice is The Man from UNCLE.  Ignore the reviews, just go and see it and have some fun like the old days, it'll do you good.  I remember UNCLE et al the first time around, especially with my teenage hormones leaping into the red zone at the sight of David McCallum's white nylon polo and flat fronted trousers, topped by his blond bob, all in total contrast to Robert Vaughan and those double-breasted blazers with brass buttons.  Sadly, I didn't quite get the same hormone rush on Monday afternoon.  Instead, the small-minded bloke in front of us complained to the management that we were making too much noise and had dared to talk through the adverts.  He needs to get out more, even if it is into an uncertain world.

Raven

Sweaty Betty

The breaking news that I've bought a bike has meant several things; I've had to clear out the shed, buy some lycra cycling pants, a bell and a crash helmet, and have the piss gently taken by Grimy who's been a seasoned biker since his youth.  So far, Alphonse has said nothing.  Anyway, it all started when Them Next Door had been out on the tandem and passed by a 'For Sale - £25' notice attached to a vintage Raleigh shopper bike.  I'd been moaning about getting fit for ages and this seemed like the bargain of the century to Ian, who is a whizz with a set of spanners. Texts were exchanged and I nipped round in the car.  It was all going so well until we tried to fold the bike up small enough to get it into the boot of my 106 and, shame faced, had to ask for help from the 90 year old vendor.  It was the hottest day of the year so far, so it's no surprise I've called my new wheels (Sweaty) Betty.

Some people are natural bikers, mainly because their parents buy a small trike, then a bigger machine to get the kids to school, and then in adulthood there's a natural progression to a proper bike for fitness.  This didn't happen in my case owing to my big brother's casual approach to cornering and generally falling off, and our Mum's desire to have at least one chick mature to old age.  So I caught the bus to school and the day I turned 17, I applied for a driving licence.  Thus, the need for decent headgear drove me out of the Nest to one of the city's premier bike shops at the edge of Leicester's student quarter.

Unhappily, all thoughts of safety disappeared as I walked past a 'once-worn' clothing emporium called Revival.  I saw all the colours and bags and shoes and was in there like a shot, rooting around the rails for something magenta to go with my new shoes.  It's like a drug, this place, and utterly addictive.  An hour later, I'd found a perfect skirt and the right coloured top which turned out to be too big so will be recycled to a charity shop.  But I was now running late for work who would be calling soon to find out if I'd gone missing, so I legged it to the cycle shop burning off lots of calories.

Don't know if you've seen the VW advert with the parachute salesman?  Where the chap decides to buy the cheaper parachute because it comes with a free clock radio?  The chap in the bike shop took one look at me and after listening to my queries regarding safety, showed me the basic helmet saying,
"It only comes in grey."
"Oh good.  It matches my work uniform."  Ignoring my sarcasm, he assisted me in the fitting.
"And it has a light at the back."
"I won't be pedalling at night."  I won't be pedalling much in the day either but still, safety first.
"The next one up is very popular with the ladies."  Immediately, I could see why even if he couldn't.  It was white with silver flashes and fit properly which the grey one didn't.  I popped it on my head and smiled, except that he hadn't finished passing on his expertise.
"It doesn't fit like that."  He proceeded to tip it forward onto my forehead and then patted it down hard so it rested above my eyebrows.  "Much better," he quipped "you've got to protect your head not your vanity."  Brilliant.  I wondered which one Betty would prefer and settled for the white one of course, and handed over my credit card.  I daren't look on the internet to see how much I could have saved online because I thought of the VW advert again.  As Ian said as he wrestled to get Betty's handlebars on straight, "Don't buy cheap headgear because you only get one skull!"

Tip of the Beak:  And it only takes one relatively small change to completely ruin a shopping experience.  One of my favourite time-wasting venues is Wilko.  It has so much stuff I'll never need but where else do you get bargain cleaning products?  Certainly not the Pound Shops.  Oh no, it has to be the proper stuff and as I needed a refill of sunflower seeds for our new squirrel-proof bird feeder, I had to pop into the branch in town.  Wilko!  What have you done? They've reconfigured the queuing system to resemble the check-in area at JFK ... one long endless queue and if you've only got one bag of nuts, you still have to wait behind the vast legions of pensioners in front who are buying for the whole street with no option to nip sideways to the 'cash only' tills.  Please Wilko, put it back as it was and restore the ambiance and joy to shopping.  I won't come back until you do.

Raven

The Toilet Vanishes

After a week away from work, I landed back at my desk a whole 15 minutes late for the start of the shift.  Beak down, I'd shuffled out of the house and into the car hoping a cunning excuse would pop into my mind to explain my tardiness.  Nope, nothing happened in my hay-fever stricken brain.  Simply, I had been refused an extra week's leave and didn't want to be wrenched away from tending to my mange-tout and tomato plants.  Tuning in to the general atmosphere, the hospital felt like another country.  Everyone was talking in hushed tones, cupboards were being cleared out and down at the end of our corridor, the engineers were fitting a combination lock to a door which hadn't been opened for years "for an inspection tomorrow, " they told me.  I had no idea who would want to inspect the old Daycare Christmas tree but it was keeping the three of them occupied.

My PC was on go-slow too.  I stared at the list of 150 irrelevant emails and spotted a couple of nuggets amongst the detritus.  The first was an edict from the Andrex Puppy saying I must complete my Health & Safety training module on line before tomorrow's inspection.  These are orders and anyone failing to comply will be spoken to, thus explaining why every available PC in the place was occupied by a pale, perspiring colleague who didn't have any of the answers.  I finished my module in under the 30 minute record and ploughed on with the second priority task of ordering my new uniform, the deadline having passed while I was on holiday.

Our stores department had sample uniforms to try and when I asked for a set to fit my Raven's shape, they declined.  My old uniform is a UK size 12, with a bit of give in the middle for a jacket potato or bag of chips if the mood takes me so I thought it would be a good idea to order the same again.  The chunky lad who runs stores gave me a stern look.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you."
"I'm the same size as the day I started here."  He had the decency not to look me up and down before answering.
"Maybe ... but the new uniforms aren't."
"So can I try a size fourteen then?"
"No.  We haven't got any of them.  Will size six do?"
"Don't be silly ... my arm's bigger than a size six."  I had seen the minuscule jacket modelled by another Ward Clerk, and she'd needed oxygen after her breathing became restricted trying to get it off.  I had started to feel nostalgic for the days when a Marks & Spencer size 12 standard garment could be picked up and bought, without trying it on, secure in the knowledge that it would fit perfectly.  Although I exclude bras due to their tendency to have built-in jiggle room.  Chunky was searching his cupboard for something suitable for me to try and waved a bag in my direction.
"Have you seen the dress?"  Yes I had and wouldn't be having one owing to its overall density of fabric and when worn, I felt I could bend light around my body.  I'm sure it had been engineered to give an air of reliability and solidness, but on my frame it also shouted 'butch'.

After another hour wasted as I searched out the appropriate sizes to try from other departments, I returned to the office where I'd started, only to find a keycode lock on the door and no sign of an engineer to give me the code.  I couldn't ring them because my phone was behind a locked door so trouped up to their office only to be met with a wall of silence.  I felt an explanation would help.
"I need to get my lunch and my handbag and get to the Ward before I'm late."  My bleating had no effect whatsoever.
"Should have thought about that before you left the office unsecured."
"I did think about it but had to order my uniform."  With the speed of a melting glacier, he wrote our code on a piece of paper and handed it to me.
"You can't tell anyone else this number."
"Not even the other four secretaries who work there when I'm not in?"
"No.  They'll have to come and get it too."
"And the twenty or so consultants who nip in throughout the week ... can they have the code?"
"No.  That wouldn't be secure, would it?"  I was going to be a very long seven days for me, I could feel it in my water.

The whole palaver of running around after other people meant I had no time to enjoy my sweaty sandwiches or tasty slab of banana loaf as I didn't know the keycode to open the staff fridge either.  And when I finally arrived on the Ward for part two of my shift, I was overtaken by the necessity for a comfort stop and headed for the usual door marked 'Ladies".  Except there was nothing in the room that had once been our primping area; they'd taken the basin, the bins, and the gits had even removed the toilet leaving a hole in the floor.  I've used Italian ski toilets before but they were just a hole carved in the ice over a gully, allowing skiers to do the necessary whilst on the piste.  This was something else.  The departing Ward Clerk patted me on the back and pointed me towards the locker room.
"You'll have to use the nurses' toilets from now on."
"Great but in three years I've never been given the keycode or a locker in there so what do I do?"
"I can't tell you because of the inspection tomorrow."  I could tell she was enjoying this except I wasn't going to be fobbed so easily.
"I'll have to go downstairs then ... which will make you late again and you'll get another telling off."  You know, it's surprising what unlocks doors in the face of abject stupidity.

Tip of the Beak:  I slept really well that night, despite the extreme humidity, because I was secure in the knowledge that I'd been secured out of my own job.  I'll be carrying a portaloo from now on.

Raven

A New Way to Fly

I've done it chums ... the book of the dread bird has landed and published last week on the Amazon Kindle store.  And I can't stop grinning like an idiot, mainly because I've finished something I've been bleating about for years.  Alphonse thinks I've become a bit hysterical over what to do next, but I've got a new book brewing on the back burner.  Before that, I'm gifting myself with two weeks off from writing whilst we spruce up the Nest.  If only it would stop raining long enough for the paint to dry.

Tip of the Beak:  For some ridiculous twist of fate, A New Way to Fly has been marketed alongside the E L James bodice-ripper, Fifty Shades of Grey.  Who knows why I'm still laughing ... I just can't help it.
Raven

Make Your Mind Up Time

I've had my beak down over the dreaded ebook now since January and stupidly, on the brink of publishing, I've read another 15 websites on the intricate technicalities of how not to do it.  I'm totally confused but I don't care; I'm going to give it a punt this weekend.

What booted me in the rump was a sample writing course I'd signed up for last month at the University.  Alphonse and other chums will tell you I've been banging on about saving up for and doing a Masters in television scriptwriting for far too many years - how it would enhance my chances, make my fortune (ha!) and network me into the upper strata of the writing community.  That's tosh and I know it; I just like being a student and wearing strange clothes and hanging about in bars looking interesting.  I do that anyway, so there's nothing to be gained there.

Back to the course.  Eight gals and one male tutor, who was very tall, like a goalkeeper with massive hands.  Granted, he really knew his stuff and nudged us along with the usual warm up exercises, editing practice and then we talked about writing and slagged off poetry as being 'fluffy'.  These ladies were serious writers and all very keen and it was going very well until he started talking about present participles and grammatical styles, and my brain caved in.  I hadn't done this stuff since the 1970s, when men had hair, smoked and wore mustard nylon polo-neck jumpers with flat fronted trousers.  Academia is not for me.  I love writing to you, and that's why I'm here at 8.00 am with a long day at work ahead of me filing medical records.

Other news from the Nest has all been about plumbing.  Next door's mainly.  They had developed an airlock which was vibrating the walls every time they filled a kettle.  I thought my tinnitus had got much worse so I enquired by banging on their front door.
"What's that **** noise."  This was 11.00 pm, and I wasn't happy.
"It's the pipes!" they said.  It sounded like Leicester's main sewer after a monsoon.  "We can't shut it up ..."
"Oh right."  They demonstrated again and the excruciating whining noises kept fifteen people up all night until the plumber came.

The following day, my new washing machine arrived exactly as a text message had predicted. They took away my old wreck with noisy bearings and replaced it with a shiny German model, except the chap who installed it broke the blue, cold water key saying 'Ooops!'  When we turned it on, the pipes produced arterial spurts of water all over the kitchen and thus a plumber was needed, except he couldn't come round for a week.  Happily, the shower needed replacing too so he could combine both jobs at once.  Except our ancient pipes don't conform to the norm and neither did the shower, so a twenty minute job stretched into oblivion and it took three of us with lots of swearing to bolt the damn thing into place.  Now it's permanently too hot and we've got another two week wait for him to come back and make adjustments.  At least our smalls are clean.

Tip of the Beak:  I haven't mentioned the 'situation' at work because it's grim and I don't know where to start.  People keep disappearing, or retiring, or in one case going home never to return.  It's my three year anniversary today and I'm still there, keeping under the managements' radar with my beak zipped.  It's the only way.

Raven

Epiphany

The Nest started the New Year in a state of flux with four Xmas trees being squashed into a closet only big enough for two and I had to consider the awful truth that we needed more space.  I gazed out of the rear window at the threatening sky, hanging its head having been painted the colour of tin, and mulled over a dull afternoon stretching before me.  Alphonse was downstairs having embraced a fine lunchtime pint and the benefits of an afternoon nap; the Sudafed advert was playing on every channel and I'd developed a severe case of cabin fever.  Dejunking, a force that once it grips you in its thrall, it's almost primeval.  I boxed up old DVDs, CDs and the complete works of Jeremy Clarkson.  Alphonse's Argentinian football strip had to go too, only because his arms used to be skinny; they're not now.  I kept the piano of course even though neither of us play any more; it might be handy if I ever have to accompany the saxophone at some kind of soiree or outside Marks & Spencers.  When I lobbed it all in our shed that crouches in the corner of the garden, I knocked over some old paint tins and an old tin of greasy grease which had been brewing on the workbench for decades.  They also had to go too.

I felt very virtuous having started 2015 surrounded by space, and vowed to carry on by clearing my desk on my first day back at the grindstone, although my plans were thwarted by the Rota Witch who was standing, arms folded, next to my desk.  She'd left her rolling pin at home and was playing with my letter opener as a weapon of choice.  It didn't take a genius to work out she had burning issues and the body language of my three secretary chums shouted "she's all yours!"

"Why didn't you answer your mobile?"
"I don't take it into the shower.  You rang at 11.00."
"Well I need you to work this Saturday for me." This is only Monday, January 5th. "I'm not feeling well."
"But you've had two weeks sick leave over Christmas and now you're planning to be ill again when it's your Saturday."
"Yes." There's brass neck and then there's taking the Michael.
"No." I explained in single syllables.  The hospital was closed on my Saturday and I was forced to lose annual leave because I couldn't work if we were shut. "So ... No."
Her own body crumpled suggesting she'd been dropped from a great height into a pile of cacky stuff and she shuffled off, muttering.  The other secretaries looked at each other, then at me, then at the door then back to me and the least-stunned of the group ventured forth.
"Did she really just plan to be sick this Saturday?"
"Yep."
"Disgusting!"

When I finally logged on and got to work, I checked my emails and found a re-issued rota featuring my name for the coming Saturday shift that no-one wanted, sent out at 10.30 am long before she's called me.  The grovelling email to change it once more would have been funny had it not signalled more of the same.  This will be a regular feature I feel for every second Saturday when it's her turn to work Ward2 and therefore must be shifted over to someone else; preferably Raven.  So I'd had my Epiphany early this year and have started to adopt a more 'do as you would be done by' approach favoured by The Water Babies. What she doesn't know is that I've applied for a job to be PA to the Ward Manager thus duffing her out as my line manager forever.

Tip of the Beak:  When I finally staggered back to the Nest, I found Alphonse with his screwdriver poking at the oven door.
"Have you seen my tin of grease?"  Play dumb Raven, play dumb. Silence exposed my guilt.
"Well you're going to have to live with a squeaky door and don't even consider moaning when the cold gets into the driver's door on the car because you've thrown out my tin."  It was already grating like the lid of Herman Munster's front door and I was about to ask for help.  Too late.

Raven