Catching up

It has been a lovely evening as I have been out with deliveries to my kleeneze customers, most of whom I have not seen for 6 months. There has been a lot of news to catch up with.
Two couples have celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary. Such lovely news to counterbalance all the less jolly stuff on the news.
It makes me look forwards to getting back to kleeneze later in the year.

Getting back into the swing

Having come back into my blog today I realise it is almost a year since I last wrote anything. Shame on me.

I will try harder in 2012. Although it is no excuse I have been rather busy lately, as I took on a fixed term contract to do some Speech and Language Therapy back in the NH of S for a while. I wanted to refresh my skills in some areas that I had not had much practise at for a few years, so I can keep my options open for the future.

It has been an interesting time, and I can see how services and morale have both taken a dip since I was last 'in the system'.  Parts of it have been fun and I have met some lovely people.  The journey to and from work 4 times a week has taken its toll though, and as I reach the end of a week's holiday just relaxing at home, I am aware of how tired and fed up I have become with it.

Still, this is not a moan...I have returned to the blog in order to just start recording what is happening in my life and in the life of the world each day. I notice that stories and threads seem to move on so quickly and it would be interesting to look back later and see how it all has evolved. So I suppose this is just a journal entry, by any other name and it will just be stuff I observe and nothing very earth shattering.

One thing I have enjoyed this week is getting back to the cataloguing and starting to plan Jamie and I's recruitment activity again. I have really missed the fresh air, regular exercise and keeping in touch with our customers who are lovely folk that I have got to know over the last few years. Luckily I still bump into many of them in town and in the coffee shop, so still get some news. 

Jamie and I are exploring the world of tablet pcs as he is writing some Apps for people that have communication and cognitive difficulties, and it would be helpful to be able to show them on both phones and tablets, so watch this space for more on that.

The news this week have been dominated by trouble in Africa and a sunken cruise ship off Italy's coastline. Also the stricken tanker off Tauranga's coast, which is dear to my heart, has now broken up, and a dutch teenager is nearing the end of a solo sail round the world that caused so much controversy when she started.  She is only 16 years old, and it does cause me to wonder what she will do next and what kind of life she will lead as she is clearly an extraordinary person.

We have chicken and bacon pie tonight...the first one I have made for ages and I am very much looking forwards to it.  I have only just started feeling ready for food again after my first visit to zazabazaar in Bristol yesterday, where I had what you would call a 'good feed'. Spend most of yesterday sleeping it off.

Speech and Language Therapy

I heard today that the Speech & Language Therapy department in Southwark is to lose both qualified therapists and assistants who are to be made redundant.

This will be a huge shock to a profession that has not had to deal with this kind of thing before, and to the patients that will no longer be getting a service from  these therapists.

I left the NHS 5 years ago because services were deteriorating to a point where my conscience would no longer tolerate it, and I wonder where it will all end.

Anyone who has ever experienced  the isolation and disenfranchisement of a communication disability, or who has had to forego food and drink for days, weeks or months on end because of swallowing difficulties will know how service reductions will impact lives.  Therapists are not administrators and they work on the front line with patients who need them.  

Unfortunately much of our work is about quality of life and is not necessarily life saving, and therefore falls to the bottom of the pile.  And many of the people who use the services have no voice with which to complain.

Things that go together

One of the various semantic tasks that I carry out with my patients at times is an exercise where you have to find the 'things that are related '.

This  could include things like 'apple and orange are both fruits', or 'skirt and trousers are both clothes'.  The trick is to find the shared category.

Another related task is 'opposites', where you find the pairs that are linked by being opposites to each other, such as 'hot and cold', 'tall and short' etc.

Over the last few weeks it has occurred to me that such pairings can often be found in the news, so I am going to keep my eyes open for these now, and any that other people notice would be appreciated for my list.  Ideally they will combine the two activities, for example:


Rescues: Chilean miners-  successful / Hostage- unsuccessful

Manchester money: Wayne Rooney- multimillionaire / public sector workers -skint

Please do let me know of any others you find out there.

Maybe they won't all highlight the awfulness of the negative one quite as much as these do, but I shall be interested to find out

Tis the season to be jolly

More apples today... and these ones made it into a crumble.

I like mine with cream.   I think Jamie probably would have preferred custard. 

Hooray for leftovers.

A new trolley named Doris has been integrated into my rounds this week.  She is very robust and holds lots of catalogues.  She leaks a little but that is a small problem that is easily overcome with baby wipes.

I hope to spend many happy hours with her.  The apples fitted very well into a very handy little pocket in her lid which was definitely a Brucey Bonus.

Beady eyes

 One of my customers makes gorgeous sea glass beads and has a new website which I will tell you more about soon.
However, via her website I have discovered Beads By Laura, which also has some beautiful beads available if you are crafty.
  I used to make jewellery but don't anymore. However I still take an interest and really enjoy feasting my eyes on the stunning beads that people are producing now. 
You can enter Laura's competition by following the link and may win some of these beauties.


http://www.beadsbylaurablog.com/2010/09/bead-giveaway.html

Dogs

seem to be featuring frequently in the 'unusual uses for Kleeneze products' category  at the moment.

Today one customer disclosed that she had bought the hose to tap connector purely so she could hose down her very large and  very hairy hound out in the garden as he had outgrown the bathroom.


Having had a large labrador in the past who loved water and baths I can understand this desire to remove him from the bathroom. 

My dog, Otto, used to love being bathed and tried to eat the shampoo once it had been put on, so I had to rinse him off very quickly before he could eat enough of it to be sick!