R's rue

I'm working night shifts this week to cover nurses who have had to put themselves into isolation . Next week I am on holiday, though I suspect things may change if staff shortages continue. Everything has changed in work, everything. And emotions are running high. In a fit of testosterone I went to B&Q  ( a hardware store for those that don't know) and bought paint and sugar soap and extra brushes . The store was busy with people with similar plans Next week I shall start painting my living room a gentle and relaxing vanilla yellow I feel somewhat bombarded with information Twitter seems awash with stoic and funny comments about isolation But most have a sort of shocked desperation about them Thank the lord for Justin Trudeau and his cute baby beard I wish he was our Prime Minister. Some of my family are scared of what will happen. The daily bulletins at 5 pm are teatime grenades There was no dog food left in Sainsbury's yesterday They don't mention that on the news...

I'm changing the subject today and will share a story I have shared here at least once over my years of blogging. Apologies if you have heard the story before I just think it's worth a repeat, especially today. I was just twenty two years old when I first grew up as a nurse and as a man I remember the situation as if it was yesterday, and the memory seared into my psychi thirty six years ago is fresh and as moving and as important as it was on that muddy weekday morning when I was slopping tea into thirty empty cups in the kitchen of an old asylum Ward . I was tired and weary. One of four staff, I had helped 30 men to get washed, dressed and fed on Durham ward. A ward that catered for the senile, the head injured and the institutionalised. It was late morning and the men had been sat in a routine square around the day room as the staff puffed fags on the verandah. I didn't smoke so it was my job to get their tea, before another rounding of toileting began The tea was made i...