My Grammar School Reunion

“Bloody hell Kathryn … " I heard a vibrant shout coming from behind me.  "You look EXACTLY the same …!!!”  Being greeted by my first name is so unusual, I flinched.  Kathryn, there I said it.  It means ‘pure’.  Of heart, soul or mind who knows what Dad was thinking?  I always thought it made me sound like an extra wife-let of Henry VIII as in ‘Kathryn of Arrogant’, waiting for the executioner’s axe.  And as I embraced Dr Gillian, I felt the years melt away.  Along with Glee-style choirs, prom dresses and box sets of Game of Thrones, the High School Reunion seems to have nudged its way across the Atlantic and swum ashore in the UK. Except they’re not a new phenomenon are they?  Like knicker elastic, it all depends on the strength of your old school ties.  A brilliant example of the HSR genre is the film Grosse Pointe Blank, mainly for its pitch-black humour, cutting-edge dialogue and Joan Cusack; strangely not John.  She convinces her boss, a professional hitman, to attend his High School Reunion and predictably it goes downhill in a hail of bullets. I also adore Minnie Driver’s gold necklace and am still searching for a copy; one I can afford anyway.

Life, like my feathers, has been a bit flat lately until I was accosted in M&S by an old school chum.  Shirley cornered me in Per Una and ordered me to attend our 50th school reunion.  I remember being 11, it was painful.  Imagine the burgeoning energy our 11 year old selves possessed?  You could power a city with it.  Back then I believed we would all become doctors, lawyers, dentists or artists; ready to save the world from itself. Yet I didn’t feel worthy somehow; it was the era of Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong and I wanted to be ‘out there’.  Instead, I left in the Summer of ’72 with a Fenwick’s perm and a secretarial course and today I’m in here, writing not saving.  Still, with my curiosity ignited, I felt I had to give this reunion thing a go and ignoring my usual top-to-toe black option, I wore high-vis yellow last Saturday afternoon ultimately regretting this as I was temporarily swept along in the Gay Pride festivities.  Eventually, I broke away from the crowd and ran for Silver Street and as I followed familiar faces through the door, I desperately wanted to hear tales of where the last half century had taken us all.

I had stories to tell too; trainee retail manager at 19, so bored with Leicester I ran away to Benidorm after a boy (best gloss over that one). Cabin crew (best not mention my liver needed two years to recover).  Bit of this, bit of that, BBC.  I started to bore myself as I glossed over the Body Shop era and dismissed the present.  Would my stellar classmates understand my current dead-end job and the struggle to make ends meet while I write my magnum opus? I needn’t have worried; dentists had a particularly poor showing amongst the familiar faces.  London and Oxbridge had called to many, those gifted with strong, passionate names so long fallen out of fashion.  Judith, Teresa, Claire, Gillian, Helen, Angela and Elizabeth although I’ve missed a few for anonymity’s sake.

Together, we marvelled at our School Magazine with it’s 1970’s graphic front cover, funky style and chatty news of past, present and future great deeds. Gillian had pages in there, as did Julia and Anne; actually all the Annes featured regularly. I would have killed to get a piece of writing in this hallowed publication and it only happened once.  Memo to my 11 year old self, smile on all photos, write better poetry and avoid gooey Aztek bars.  In a sea of familiar faces now all wearing specs with varifocals, at last I found Debra.  Her brilliance still shone through after half a century.

“Aren’t you a Consultant Gynaecologist?” I’d heard it through the grapevine.

“Nah!  I’ve retired now.  Never could stand Gynae.”  

I bleated “But I googled you.” Crestfallen, I wanted to burn my IT management certificates.

“Must have been another doctor.”  She said “if you google me, you get nothing.  I’m quite proud of that.”  If you google Raven + Leicester, all you get is a chippie in LE3 unless you want to buy my first book; please search the Kindle store for ‘A New Way to Fly.’

A group of us had attached ourselves to the bar, where Helen produced a colourful sheet of paper from her handbag.

“Remember these?” she asked.  They were ticket stubs from gigs she’d been to with Gillian; a list of Prog-Rock heaven.  “You liked Emerson Lake & Palmer, didn’t you?”

“Liked?”  I drooled over them and cried at Keith Emerson's demise recently. “I had all the vinyl.”  But there was one gig missing.  “We went to the Birmingham Odeon to see them.”  Helen shook her head, having forgotten a defining moment when we three were finally free of parental ties.  Memory’s a funny thing isn’t it?  I shiver at the memory of my tiny black velvet jacket which wouldn’t keep a kitten warm on a freezing night.

“Didn’t we do country dancing in the gym.”  

“I remember the Gay Gordons, Spangles and the Miners baby-pink lippy that made my teeth look yellow.”  I only wear red these days but can’t remember my 30’s much or the country dancing?  Neither of us went on the specially selected cruises or school trips and honestly, we didn’t miss much.  I didn’t hang on to much school memorabilia either. Besides, Alphonse is such a hoarder of sheet music, we’d need to extend into next door’s attic to accommodate any more stuff.  Don’t tell him but his next birthday gift is an industrial strength paper shredder.

Standing over a bowl of fallen apples yesterday, I remembered the Domestic Science lessons with Miss Leech who could easily out-stare Mary Berry.  We made apple tart from scratch as tinned pie fillings and soggy bottoms were forbidden.  I’d brought in fresh Lord Derby whoppers from our tree; one of four planted by my Dad who nothing about pomology.  As I set about peeling them with a fairly basic kitchen knife Miss Leech was on me in a flash, exuding fury and admonishing me as a ‘waster of fine produce’.  She demanded I change utensils to a potato peeler. 

“I can’t hold it properly.” I stuttered and chin up, defiant as ever said “besides it doesn’t matter … we have trees full of apples at home.”  I thought she was going to gut me with the dreaded peeler as she showed the whole class how much I’d squandered.  I’ve never forgotten that lesson.  Today, I don’t use a potato peeler for anything; I use a razor sharp tomato saw instead.  Although I regret not doing Domestic Science up to my 5th year and quizzed Helen for some background.

“Why didn’t we get to choose?”

“We did Latin instead.”  Yes, that makes real sense.

Still at the bar, I shared secretarial tales with Barbara when Bindu joined the throng, seemingly unchanged by early marriage and family, she asked us straight out.

“What would you change?” 

“Nothing.”  I chirped up.  

“You know you’re the only one today who said that.”  What use is fifty years of regret? My parents must have worked their socks off to buy that uniform with its velour hat for winter and a beret for summer.  I was frog-marched by Mum into Rowbotham’s in Belvoir Street, which in1967 was Leicester’s answer to Diagon Alley, equally magical and expensive.  I learned patience whilst waiting in line to be kitted out with Clarke’s indoor and outdoor shoes.  They measured my width on a special gadget. I was EEE then and I still am.  Soddit, I’ll never wear Louboutin’s. 

Sadly I missed a chance to have a long natter with Viv who organised this amazing day.  And Julie who had recently retired.  I waved a sad farewell to Gillian and Helen, and so wanted to chat to Teresa and the others all afternoon.  Of course, I’ve omitted some recognisable names to protect the innocent but if you want to know what 61 looks like, we are stronger and more beautiful than ever.  Like an injection of high octane rocket fuel, I’m energised and ready to start again.  So why am I standing sullen and silent in the Huddle Board session this morning?  Ten excruciating minutes of quantifying our existence by numbers; files we filed, clinics we’ve prepared and things we’ve located which should never have been lost in the first place.  I felt a roar of ruthless determination surge up from below and wondered who would attempt to push around someone with a peer group featuring so many incredible women?  No-one.

Tip of the Beak:  Only one of our number became a nurse despite the relentless nagging of the careers advice lady.  I didn’t fancy the uniform and am so glad my life followed a different path. Last week, while I was helping one of our younger nurses get to grips with the relentless paperwork, we got chatting about the books she loves most.  Mainly Harry Potter and chick lit, although I suggested she might like Robert Galbraith.

She confessed.  “I don’t rate that Tolkien much though.”

“Really?” I have the books but no time to read them.  “Why not?”

“Well that Lord of the Rings story just went on and on, and The Hobbit stuff with the spiders … ”  I had a horrible premonition of her next words.  “He just stole it from the Harry Potter books, didn’t he?”

“Not really.  He died in 1973.”  The year after I left school.

“Oh so he’s not alive then?”  I didn’t to ask where she went to school but I knew it wasn’t mine.

Raven

The All Day Interview

In these enlightened times interviews have to be endured, don't they?  In my youth it was a short chat about the job, the salary and if you were made of the 'right stuff' then a quick hand shake sealed the deal and 'see you on Monday' followed.  Now it's like an all-day-breakfast and I've had to set up a ghastly profile on something called Linkbin.  Lately I've surfed the tsunami of job sites, refined my searches because being offered jobs in Milton Keynes is not a 'short commute' and eventually, my phone went 'Ping!'  A missed call alerted me to a telephone interview the following morning at 10.15am.  Lucky I wasn't on shift so I called a nice lady from Human Remains and 15 long minutes later had passed Stage 1 of the process with ease.  This catapulted me and five other women to a huge car dealership at the junction of the M1, M69 and Fosse Park on the hottest day since records began.  Perfect timing for an interview; Friday afternoon when all the schools and mosques pitch out and the inside of the car was like molten lava.  When I arrived, I had been in a roasting tin for an hour.

I'd had the Peugeot valeted but I needn't have worried.  I found a space and parked under a shady tree before a helpful lady in corporate uniform arrived and suggested I move to the customer car park.

"Quick before it's too late!" she pleaded.

"Traffic wardens?"  History tells us they were invented in Leicester.  Where else?

"Them too ... but it's the birds."  Those pigeons are so rude and now my pristine red paint was streaked with fried egg guano from bumper to bonnet.  With hunched resignation, I moved the 106 into a line of Mini excellence, all immaculate and streak free, and raced to Reception before my shoes caught fire.  Six candidates were greeted and seated, given a cold drink and tried not to catch the eye of an upwardly-mobile couple who had strayed into our waiting area hoping to discuss finance on their new 3 series motor.  My fellow interviewees were a mixed bag in the clothing department but I needn't have worried here either.  It seems 6" heels with skinny jeans and a Primark top are just the ticket these days.  Shame I'm as old-fashioned as Ben Miller's character in Death in Paradise.  I'd forgotten to shave my armpits and, not wanting to expose my pastry coloured skin to fresh air, had unexpectedly buoyed up Next's share price by buying a suit for the occasion. I was hanging onto my jacket like a life raft, not wanting them to put a tick against a box marked 'poor hygiene'.  Nuts!

Precisely on time, we were shown upstairs through a pokey office with no windows, similar to the medical records Bunker, and into a glass-sided office with a view of the showroom downstairs.  It had Arctic air-con on full blast.  Seated around a table, Stage II commenced with a very expensive corporate video but I wasn't exactly concentrating due to the lure of the showroom and the intoxicating aroma of at least a million pounds of German uber engineering.  I hope I wasn't drooling.  Certainly there was an interview going on around me and we were being watched, so imagine my horror when the head Corporate Sales dude chirped up.

"Now I know you ladies don't like doing this but let's go round the table ... give us your name and tell us a bit about yourselves.  Married?  Children?"  All the illegal stuff that agencies warn you about in a helpful email before you go for an interview.  He ploughed on.  "Tell us what you're up to when you're not at work eh?  Let's start with ..."  He pointed to the girl in the skinny jeans who promptly gushed out her entire life history adding,

"I'm having a few health issues with my youngest at the moment.  Kids eh?"  She wanted support from the group but the girl opposite dropped her best poker face for a second and muttered.

"Well you won't get this job, will you?"

Stage III was the group exercise.  Fifteen long minutes to assess a completely insane scenario about a coach crash in the Andes; you know the one don't you?  A list of 40 items and you have to decide between you which 10 items to take to safety.  It is a test of negotiation skills but my chums will tell you that I've qualified from a better course which means I am not negotiable, ever.  I scored 7/10 but I'll still stick my beak up for the plastic cups as they're light, practical, essential for divvying out water and in the jungle when you're carrying a life raft, £10,000 in cash and your passports, you can use them to protect against massive spiders.  Then came a simple addition, subtraction and percentages maths test without the use of a calculator.  At last my Body Shop discount card experience came up trumps as I can work out percentages in a flash, although I don't know if you remember Wonky the white faced witch with no discernible talent except for petulance and sending Tweets from the toilet?  She works for Hayes Recruitment now and last week rejected me for an interview despite trying to 'friend' me on Linkbin for a couple of years.  Oh the irony!  Five of us finished together.  Skinny jeans bailed out, unable to cope without her mobile and clearly upset that we couldn't help her complete the test; with hindsight she probably got the job.

On the way downstairs to Stage IV, one of the ladies in their Bunker grabbed my hand in both of hers and shook it saying "Thank you for coming."  This is a lifetime first and very odd.  After another short interview I understood that all over the above was a preamble to The Formal Interview.  They explained there would be no face-to-face customer contact, work would be all done on the phone from 0830-1800, five days a week with no leeway.  If you add the hour-each-way commute and no staff parking into the mix, it's a 47.5 hour working week for less than I get now.  The HR lady did say they could up the salary a bit but I suggested that would put me at the top of their range, just like the gleaming Tropical Turquoise 5 series with full leather interior which purred into life outside the office window.  It was nearly 6.00 pm.

I ran for the Peugeot and even with a trip to Aldi for provisions, it took an hour to get home for my first Burleigh's and pink grapefruit tonic of the weekend, and as I talked it through with Alphonse, my beak went down into the glass at the close of an endless, tedious and probably unnecessary process.

"Do I really think I could sit there day in day out just out of reach of those beautiful cars and concentrate on a corporate finance deal?" With milk and mobile phones, it was easy.  Alphonse agreed.

"No Raven, you couldn't."  Spoken just as an email arrived to inform me that I hadn't got to Stage V.  Cheers!!

Tip of the Beak:  "Don't buy a black car ..." Chum Eliza warned me through the window of her beige Ford.  "It'll show every mark!"  So did the red 106 but I loved it.  With a heavy heart, I raised a glass last weekend bidding farewell to 17 years of fun and eye-watering bills for three replacement head gaskets.  With Alphonse's help, my new motor has alloy wheels and glistening black bodywork, and I parked him under the trees to stay cool throughout another concrete-blistering day.  When I set off for work this morning the ghastly birds had decorated the back end as only roosting wood pigeons can.  Now where's my shotgun!

Raven 

Devious Car Dealerships

Pulling into the hospital car park roared the unmistakable silhouette of an Aston Martin recovery vehicle.  They’re as rare as ravens in this neck of the woods so I stopped to stare at the racing green and gold-trimmed truck.  My morning had been tedious and repetitive, so I felt much uplifted when the driver hopped out of the carriage and asked the way to Reception.  I resisted the temptation to say ‘Oi! you can’t park that there here chum’ and asked the question we usually ask of ambulance drivers.

“Picking up or dropping off?”  It had to be one or the other.

“All sorted.  Service time for some lucky chap.” Sensing I might be envious of his cargo rather than nosey, he completely misread my body language and carried on talking just as the Hospital Director trotted towards us jangling the keys to his red thing.

“Everyone wants one of these” the driver confided. “How about you?” 

“Sorry … it’s not for me.  I’d prefer something younger.”  Like the compact Mercedes AMG hiding in a sea of Mini Coopers on the staff car park.  I can’t afford one of those either.  Well, not this month.

My old Peugeot is due it’s 15th MOT imminently and not looking or sounding great either.  Against my better judgement, I’ve set about touring car dealerships hoping for a cheap, barely-driven replacement with mixed results.  Alphonse solemnly volunteered to accompany me but I’ve decided to fly solo on this one.  Experience tells me they would ask him all the tech stuff and interesting questions and I’d only be consulted when it came to colour choices.  Besides, we wouldn’t get far in one day because he starts to drool at the sight of a Toyota GT86 brochure and frankly, it’s undignified.

Aware of the pitfalls?  Indeed I do and sure in the knowledge that sales people use all sorts of psychology to size up the weight of your wallet, I parked the Peugeot at Morrison’s.  I’m 5’3” tall in Primani ballet pumps, so would automatically be shunted into Ka, Micra, Aygo, Adam, Twingo, 500 and Up! territory. You know the mindset - one size fits all!  I landed in the bottom section of the car lot amongst the unpriced, mainly abandoned wrecks, and quickly spied an 03 plate Yaris with a very low mileage.  This would be perfect for my seven minute commute to work which has ultimately wrecked the Peugeot’s engine.  The main dealer alerted me of this a while back so I queried whether I should drive via Carlisle three days a week just to blow out the engine?  Humourless to a fault, the bloke didn’t crack his face.

For a chunk of the last decade I made a weekly round trip up the M6 to Manchester which was made bearable only by a German touring car.  The only flat bit is the Toll Road, the outside lane is filled with brake-happy morons who tail-gate and Stoke on Trent is better on an empty stomach.  None of this compares to driving in Leicester; up here we've changed the rules:

• The Highway Code is forgotten once you’ve passed your test.

• Traffic lights are an advisory measure only.

• Stopping at roundabouts?  Why?

• Clarkson Parking in the centre of two usable spaces is de rigeur.

• Women are to be driven over if you’re late for Friday prayers.

Don’t believe me?  Last week I spied a city-blue Citroen which had broken down on the grass verge opposite a huge branch of Sainsbury’s.  In less than 24 hours the tyres had gone although it had been thoughtfully left on bricks.  Another 48 hours passed until I next drove by and some wag had graffitied it with ‘Welcome to Leicester’.  Quite.

Car salesmen should come with a Haynes Manual.  Fans of “The Fast Show” will remember the genius creation of Swiss Tony with his pale grey suit and immaculately groomed quiff, who insisted cars should be treated ‘like a beautiful woman’.  Not this morning it wasn’t as I received a teeth-chattering greeting from his counterpart Swiss Tariq.  Oddly, he seemed to know less about his cars than I did and as he escorted me back to the showroom he made the stupidest mistake in the book.

“So Raven …” they get your name first “what’s your favourite car on the lot?”  I replied with my characteristic, savage honesty.

“The compact Mercedes.”  Well he asked!  Poor Tariq wanted me to choose the titchy Noddy cars I’d been inspecting but somehow they didn’t make me drool.  Ever keen, I was gently ushered inside past a woman who sits on a plinth and reads the paper; it’s her job apparently.  I declined a machine coffee and listened patiently while he dismissed the cheaper cars on the list because of their poorer resale value in five years time.  I didn’t care about five years from now when the Peugeot’s MOT is due in five weeks’ time.  Tariq wanted me to buy a new shape box with 13K miles on the clock costing three times the amount I’d declared as top of my budget.  He mentioned it’s major selling point.

“It has parking sensors.”  Did this idiot come fitted with earplugs or what?  Enough now.

“I’ve been driving for forty years …” longer than he’d been alive by the look of it  “…and I don’t need parking sensors to put an OXO cube on wheels between two other vehicles.”  Undeterred, he leaned back and sighed, then tapped extra information into the computer.

“So, let’s have a plan.”  I had a plan and it was to go somewhere else but I’m too polite.  Tariq was still talking.  “So … we’ll put a thousand pounds down and finance the rest on the pretty white one say over five years and you should be paying around a hundred pounds a month and before you make the final payment, it’ll be worth … scrap value.”

“…”  I’m good at maths particularly when I’m being robbed.

“So let’s have a look shall we?”  The printer spewed out a piece of paper that came up with a number I was unhappy with.

“What happened to my deposit?” 

“Oh that’s in necessary charges.”

“Well make them unnecessary!  If I pay this every month for five years and haven't driven the cube off the cliff in the meantime, I’ll be paying somewhere nearer ten grand for a car you’re telling me is only close to six which is well over my budget.”  Deep breath Raven, deep breath.  “And I don’t like WHITE cars.”  Tariq remained unfazed and delivered his coup de brass neck.

“So when can we get it ready for a test drive?”

Talons firmly fixed into my palms and drawing blood, I fled from the dealership and for a moment took a fleeting glance at the Ford Dealership over the dual carriageway.  No.  Not them again either.  Clutching my redundancy in 2007 I dropped in for a chat about a new motor and was told “when madam has decided what car she’d like and how much she’d like to spend, perhaps she’d like to come back.”  I believe car dealerships are one of life’s little tests. Like on-line dating sites and chia seeds.

Tip of the Beak:  One of our auditors is having problems finding true love in London.  She’s tapped countless apps and finally hit on a dream date only a few weeks ago.  I understand he was gorgeous, clever, funny, beardless and obviously quite well-healed, and they hit it off up to the point where he offered to drive her home.  She accepted gratefully but on jumping into the front seat she experienced a moment of true horror on discovering he had Batman-themed car mats.  She was gutted.  Her perfect man was flawed.

“Is that it?”  I exclaimed at the brevity of her short list.

“Those car mats sound great … where can I get some?” asked Alibone.

Even Lucinda was interested.  “What’s his number?”  But the poor bloke had been rejected purely on his inappropriate choice of car mats and our lovelorn auditor had failed another one of life’s little tests.

Raven 

The Racking Rocks

A fascinating two-page spread in the Leicester Mercury caught my beady eye this week. The sparkling new A&E Department at the Royal Infirmary opened it’s doors to casualties for the first time on Thursday.  Everyone was smiling for a change.  Such a massive project must have taken planning, organisation and substantial hard cash to achieve and with true East Midlands reserve the first customers dubbed their experience as “alright”.  Across the city and roughly coinciding with their ribbon cutting ceremony, our own more modest project kicked off.  

Our Rocking Racking had comfortably held 25K files for 25 years until an unearthly creaking meant we had to call in The Health & Safety Man.  Before entering The Bunker he apologised for his chronic personal hygiene saying his clothes had borne the brunt of a previous job; I guessed drains were involved. He also timed his arrival perfectly to witness a whole section sag towards the centre of the room.  Without breaking out an allen key, he condemned the lot as ‘unfit for purpose’ then stalked off to have a bath.  Then nothing happened for three months.

Off the back foot of the new financial year the chin scratching and measuring up started in earnest.  Will we get the go-ahead or won’t we? I wondered. “We will!” said The Racking Man.  He’s the chipper chappy who came along with grand ideas above our budget.  He included sit-stand work stations in The Plan so we could yo-yo the desk height according to the user.  Very ergonomic, yes.  Very British?  No.  The Scandinavians love these things and we’d had them at the Leeds HQ of my old firm.  After the novelty wore off, they were stealthily disconnected by the owner saying “this is my desk, set at my height and you’re not moving it.“  Worse, the expensive desks were simply ignored.

In my pre-hospital days most of what I’ve learned about the medical world is from the television. I had no idea the great 80’s series ‘St Elsewhere’ was a black comedy and, strangely, I find Casualty and Holby City much funnier than Car Share or Benidorm.  So when the rocking racking was designed by someone who wasn’t going to work in it I knew there would be trouble.  I’d also been tasked with relabelling notes to accommodate a change from portrait to landscape storage.  So unsure of the technique’s efficiency, I stopped to check with Cristabel, our hyperactive supervisor.

“Am I doing this the right way up?”  Deep thought and a group discussion ensued.  

“Yes.”  Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of impending chaos.

“Fine but don’t ask me to re-label them if you’re wrong.”  Cristabel suddenly developed ‘urgent email syndrome’ and I carried on with the efficiency of Seven-of-Nine in Star Trek: Voyager.  I was vindicated later when The Blokes came to rip out the old racking confirmed the awful truth.

“Your numbers are on the wrong side for the new setup.”  There are not my numbers mate.

We had one team meeting before the project kicked off and I thought it better to get the difficult question out of the way first before Cristabel had finished her latte.

“Who’s the project manager.”  My last project had a £60M price tag so I ruled myself out as being overqualified.  I also needed to exclude the know-it-all 22 year old Psychology Graduate from the job.  She has grand ideas but no knowledge of budgets, timescales, resource or who’s going to pick up the dross when she’s gone travelling again.  Cristabel's answer stunned me.

“No-one.  It’ll be ‘orrendous.”  In a hospital full of administrators who have never worked in the real world I abandoned tactlessness and phrased my next question gingerly.

“Who will be making the decisions then?”  When oh when will I learn to keep my beak zipped?

“The Racking Man said we’d have to reduce our stock by 33% before next week or it won’t go back in anyway.”  It’s difficult to write the real Leicester accent as dialogue but it’s much worse than Gary Lineker.  Cristabel ploughed on regardless.  “Still … it’s only a couple of days of disruption then we’re back to normal.”  In the absence of a project plan, I’ve drawn up my own list of jobs for the available resources:

Know-It-All Psychologist - She’s out of the way typing up lists of files and not making decisions.

Cristobel - In charge of arm waving and shouting “Change Of Plan” every couple of hours.

Andrex Puppy - Constantly in meetings before making U-turns and causing overall disruption.

Fruit Bat - Booked annual leave for the duration but still wants to attend the aftermath curry party.

Cherrypickers - Early starters who disappear upstairs before the tough jobs are allocated.

Rubber-Necking Consultants - All permanently in shock when they realise Med Recs staff exist above ground.

Grafters - There’s five of us.  Do the maths.

Shite Stirrer +/- Nosey Parker - In our hospital, she’s the same person.

The sign on the door read No Entry. Medical Records staff only.  With five warm bodies sifting and relabelling patient records the banter and bad language mainly revolved around paper cuts and Alibone’s new puppy.  Even before the door creaked open we knew who was behind it.  Nosey wanted to stir it a bit.

As a pre-emptive strike she chirped “I’m not coming in.”

“Good.”  The deductive logical side of my brain went back to what it was doing.

Nosey was undaunted.  “But I need a file.”

“Tough.”

“It’s important.  Could you look for it please?”  It looked like a Fishmonger’s auction in there with 150 huge crates stacked three deep and she wanted one file.  Normally the embodiment of customer service, I flipped into evil bird mode.

“What box number is it in?”

“How would I know that?”  I lifted a lid so she could peer in for a quick gander.

“So how would I know where your file is hiding amongst twenty five thousand others?”  After Nosey disappeared Alibone, who has adopted the Clean Eating regime, rattled a bag under my beak.

“Walnut anyone?”

We continued to sift and despatch files while the decorators were grafting away with magnolia paint and after lunch I decided to check on progress of The Bunker by peering through the spy hole.  They had stopped for tea and wanted to share an incisive view of the week’s proceedings.

“Why did you agree to put the racking back where it came out?”

“I didn’t agree to anything.”

“You have the look of a manager.”  I’d prefer it if I had the look of a millionaire.

“Go on.”

“Well it’s such a shame … if you’d moved the racking ninety degrees you’d have had double the office space.” I went back to Alibone shaking my head.

“We’re screwed.  Gimme some more nuts.”  When I explained the painter’s logic to her, she had to be helped into a crate for a nap.

No doubt, when we’re back to normality in a constantly shifting room of high anxiety and number dyslexia we will be giving guided tours to visiting dignitaries.  The management will take the credit as usual while we shrink under our desks and cringe.  Oddly enough, the first tour has been announced by email for Tuesday 2nd giving us just enough time to rest and repair wounded bodies yet it’s too soon to soothe egos.  All things I’m sure the staff at Leicester Royal Infirmary seem to have taken in their stride.  Or have they?

Tip of the Beak:  Thoughtfully, the Leicester Mercury vox-popped the first customers to use the glistening new facilities on Day 1 and featured one lady who ranked her experience as “quite good.’’  However I doubt they will report what happened on Day 2.  Overall the acclaim was so glowing that a number of citizens pitched up whether they were sick or not.

“We’ve heard about the new A&E Department.  Can we have a look around?”

I’m guessing they have a Duty Manager “Er … no!”

“But we’ve paid for it … the Tax Payer … that’s us.”

“Still NO!”  

“Pity.  The Leicester Mercury says it’s rather impressive.”  The dejected citizens wandered away and down the road a bit to visit Richard III, who’s resting in a very grand bunker indeed.

Raven

Nursery Themes into Room 101

Happy Losar To You, as they say in Tibet.  It’s New Year and I’m calm now the birthday festivities are over for 2017.  When I booked a week’s annual leave, I had the glorious idea of a whole week of sloth-dom hoping to recover from everything Winter has thrown in my direction.  By Monday, a big crimp had appeared in the plan as I summoned the enthusiasm to visit the Retail Cathedral.  It was a struggle but I needed a baby-related gift for my old boss LouLou, who is expecting her first visit from the stork. To complicate matters further, she doesn’t know the sex of her impending bundle of joy.

“What?!” scalded one nurse “You have no theme for the nursery?”  

LouLou glowed with inner serenity.  "My baby doesn't need a ‘theme' she replied and floated off.

I was miffed as I’d already had one failed attempt at securing LouLou’s present on Ashby Market.  There’s a dedicated smallholder who sells throws and blankets of etherial softness, and she had a gorgeous cot set which wasn’t quite the bargain it appeared. I tried to explain my reasons for not snapping it up.  

“It’s brown and cream.” There was a giraffe on it too but even in the 21st century it felt far too male.  Personally, I feel giraffes are a wonder of nature but the baby clothes market mainly do them in yellow or taupe.  Undecided on a gift for any gender, I couldn’t leave without buying something. Marie-Celeste had secured two fabulous throws and as we needed an extra one for upstairs, I selected a super-soft double throw with extra snuggle only to find out later it won’t stay on the bed.  Every morning, it sulks like an enormous pile of mango sorbet by the bedroom door and is so slippery that Alphonse can’t wrangle it back into shape.  It seems to be slithering all by itself into Room 101.

With hindsight, I wish I’d bought the giraffe set and saved myself another trip out.  These days gender neutral gifting is common for babies and after drooling over the Beatrix Potter selection in Boots, I selected a full body suit with a little bonnet covered in bunnies.  Result!  Next, the cuddly toy.  Except Next didn’t have what I wanted, so I headed for one of those Occasions shops with candles, cards and gifts where they occasionally they do customer service.  I said “Hi!” to the two hatchet-faced biddies guarding the front entrance.  They didn’t reply but just looked at each other and sniggered.  It being Winter, and me being very quick on the up-take, I smiled.

“Ah … it’s my Princess Leia earmuffs, isn’t it?”  They’re very jovial and warm.  I bought them keep out musak in lifts and the unwanted noise from hand driers in the Ladies loo, but I can hear speech perfectly well, thank you.  I inherited my spectacular hearing from Dad’s side of the family, a bonus to life really as Mum went profoundly deaf at the age of 40.  Ignoring their blatant rudeness, I ploughed on. “Now where are the fluffy Peter Rabbit dolls please?”  The shorter of the two women nodded.

“In the corner your Highness.”  Okay, so I was wearing black boots, combat leggings and a silver parka but there’s no need to be rude.  And sniggering?  I’d been watching Frank Skinner on Dave and decided rather than waste another second, I’d go to Toys-R-Us instead and consign these two to Room 101.

Following them swiftly down the chute are the sales tactics of a certain Danish jewellery emporium.  I had a £50 voucher burning a hole into my purse and headed for the big white shop opposite the Apple Store.  Last year’s treat to myself was the mystical wing pendant which I wear all the time, and before I could say “I’m looking for …” the sales assistant had selected the matching ring in my size, earrings and other related bling and popped it onto the round velvet tray.  She wasn’t happy when I said ‘I don’t do matching items’ and she slung on the top of this dragon’s hoard a couple of twisted rings.  She seemed very chirpy as she slid the rose gold version onto her finger.

“You’ll love this ring.  It really suits my skin tone.”  Of course it does, I thought, you’re Afro-Caribbean.  Sadly, rose tints do nothing for my Anglo-Saxon hue and paper-cut riven hands but there was no stopping her.  

“It’s only a hundred and fifteen pounds so you could use your gift voucher and top it up with another sixty five quid … so it’s a bargain.”  My Inner Accountant had to nip this in the bud before I was overwhelmed by the pushy ambiance, so I muttered “I’ll be back on payday” with no intention of returning.  Instead, I nipped three doors down and spent my voucher with those nice, un-pushy ladies in Thomas Sabo.  So, Room 101, you are welcome to Sales Assistants who try to second-guess their customers.

Room numbers have played a big part in my world recently.  There is no Room 101 in the hospital, or if there is it’s a sluice on the first floor.  Our File Prep Room is a converted bedroom and has 114 as a locator on the door.  It has been freshly painted in beige with all the old chintz and unhygienic

curtains removed for our safety.  On my first day back, I was despatched upstairs with an armful of files and as I entered Room 114, I was met with a dreadful apparition.  Alibone and Kiranski had been inducted into the new regime since 8.00 am and were both in a terrible state with eyes glazed over, listening to seamless Capital FM tunes about shagging.  The whole scenario was undignified.

“Have you two had lunch?”  The room smelled vaguely like salad.

“A bowl of alfalfa sprouts with olives and feta and it is very life affirming.”  Alibone’s on this ‘Eating for Life’ malarkey and judging by her grey skin, it’s sucked most of her chi down the drain too.  “You smell lovely.”  She found the strength to smile; at least she wasn’t rocking from side to side.

“It’s Eau de Bacon Sandwich.”  I decided not to mention the rest of my customary Thursday morning brunch as I detected drool on her face.  In the opposite corner, Kiranski was nibbling on a peanut M&M and obviously distressed.

“They’ve turned off the colour printers to save money.”  I think clinical dehydration was making her a bit waftie because the heating was on full blast; even with the window open it was like a roasting oven in there.

After an hour on file preparation duty, I realised we had less enrichment in our working day than the average battery chicken.  No soft toys, photos or medical student calendars - a welcome gift from Brighton last year - or personalised mugs are allowed in Room 114.  To the casual observer, the management have created a ‘Zombie Zone’ where the staff swiftly become hollow-eyed and monosyllabic just to cope with the staggering workload.  Mr Orwell, I salute your genius by lobbing Room 114 into Room 101.

Tip of the Beak:  Leicester’s Comedy Festival has been the saviour of the City's sense of humour recently; please don’t mention football if you’re visiting.  And I was delighted to secure the last ticket at the Curve to see Romesh Ranganathan being interviewed - www.curveonline.co.uk - have a watch, it’s fascinating.  As is something he said about the many times he’d considered giving up comedy.

“Whatever happened, even if I had to go back to being a Maths teacher, I would still have the Coolest Hobby in the World.”  So do I.  

Raven

The La La Land Affair

Most of the week between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve was spent enveloped in my crispy duck-down duvet.  As bedding goes it's quite noisy.  It crinkles when I move and crackles the colder it gets outside, yet keeps me toastie warm even when I sleep with my talons splayed out of the bottom of the bed.  And so I've been stricken with the 'buckets of snot' virus; so severe a local GP proclaimed it was the 'worst he'd seen for 40 years'.  So I took the advice, stayed at home, away from the shops and tried to get better.  Or is it sober? I'm not sure. When I did amble downstairs for a hot toddy and some festive cheer, I couldn't help but notice the grim state of festive tele.  Particularly, if it had the gurning face of Toby Jones in it, the on switch went off, so that did it for Sherlock and The Witness for the Prosecution.  Pity.

For one incredible hour, I was completely hypnotised by a new show called "the World's Most Extraordinary Homes".  I'm sure you have something similar in your neck of the woods.  You take two unrelated presenters, Caroline & Piers in this series, cobble them together then force them to tour the homes of the super-rich and insist they say "Ooh" and "Ahh" with false enthusiasm every 10 seconds; either that or the BBC had found a bucket of licence payers' money needing to be squandered, seriously.  First pick four majestic properties in stunning locations.  They don't have to be homes or houses technically, just located in awe-inspiring places that no-one poor can get to without a helicopter.  Canyons, forests, earthquake zones, dark side of the moon anyone?  

In my Bailey's soaked brain, I definitely heard them say that house No.1's location looked so much like a plane crash from above that it needed 18 different FAA permissions to be built at all.  Well, not 'built' exactly but assembled from an old Boeing which had been languishing in an airliner graveyard deep on the border of the Mohave desert.  My dormant project management skills sat up and totted up the cost - bits of a plane that had to be cut to size, an architect of international standing all dressed in black to match the owner, 55 acres of Californian hillside to be flattened, wings for the roof that you could have a barbecue on.  I stopped counting at $100m, enough to finance the movie La La Land.  All this from a former Mercedes saleswoman.  My chum's hubby once gave her a cheque for £50K and sent her down to Evans Halsall for a new car.  I caught up with her in the wine bar later and was surprised by the depth of her glum-ness.

"What did you get with it?"  Something fast, girlie, white perhaps?

"A Mercedes." I knew this already. "It's grey and an old bloke's car."

"Didn't you get a choice of colour even?"  She shook her head and downed another large one saying,"His cash ... his colour choice."  Oops.  And to think I've had my beady eye on the new A class?

There were lots of expletives and noises from our presenters as they were helicoptered in to home No.2 which had been conceived and built by two doctors in the Arizona desert.  I liked the 'open on all sides' house with a fake Giant's Causeway as a front drive, but went off it when the owners admitted to Caroline & Piers, now joined at the hip, that they didn't live in it for a year because the whole project had left them traumatised.  Really?  A similar experience awaited us with home No.3, nestled into the landscape of New Zealand's Bay of Plenty; site of the one genuine UFO sighting on the night of Y2K.  Still, the house was nice enough but the tin foil roof could be seen from space.  And unable to coax the owners on camera, Caroline & Piers had to be satisfied with a FaceTime chat with the architects, one with long hair and specs who did all the talking and the other who was obviously the silent partner.  And they were not leaving the North Island for a couple of Brit co-presenters. Honestly, I doubt dinner with Halle Berry would have got them on a plane either.

In Switzerland, house No.4 was a winner in that it veered away from the cuckoo-clock style recognised throughout the world and instead looked like a nuclear bunker built on the side of a mountain.  The structure contradicted everything English children are taught in Primary school about traditional chalets which are built to house the family's livestock downstairs in winter conditions thus keeping them safe from avalanches, aren't they?  Honestly, didn't Caroline & Piers learn this at school like the rest of us? My hero of the whole show was THE FOG.  Incredibly dense, it stole the view from unfunny Caroline & petulant Piers landing them in cloud cuckoo land as they resorted to having a drawing competition to 'imagine' the view should the sun ever come out.  My absolute favourite moment was when Alphonse hit the mute button just to see if it was more interesting without sound.  It wasn't.  Come on BBC ... The Clangers is more informed than this! 

Lying around, trying not to cough, sneeze or overdose on Potter's catarrh pastilles, I mulled over our own Nest.  Yes it's high, it has views although 150ft of sycamore tree sort of blots out the sun sometimes.  It's south facing, has 3 up and 3 down, and a garden at each end. The mouldy patch in the corner of the bathroom is a bit of a worry but my new 'catstronauts' shower curtain is a silly diversion while I've been recovering.  

Back at my desk on the first Tuesday morning of a New Year, a lonesome email contained an invitation to an interview.  The role? Bed Manager.  An interesting title for the person who ensures that if a patient comes a'knocking, then we have a bed for the duration of their stay; that's the theory.  In the NHS it's called The Bed Bureau and please don't tell me you've been avoiding the newspaper headlines proclaiming 'panic everyone! there's no beds in England'.  It's true, there aren't.  Anyway, after a 30 minute grilling the next day, my manager told me with some regret that I was unsuccessful and had lost out to a 20 year old with no experience.  I knew this already too but she wouldn't let it drop and asked me straight out.

"So what now for you?"  Play dumb Raven.

"What do you mean.  Back to work.  End of."

"No.  I mean what the Hell is someone like you doing filing in medical records? Are you nuts?"

Perhaps I am.

Tip of the Beak:  Go and see La La Land.  Please ignore the critics and have a great time, then make up your own mind.  

Raven