Sunday, 23 January 2011

Happy New Year! It’s been ages since I last wrote and so much has happened in that time too. Winter arrived with a vengeance, then there were the Christmas shenanigans and the holiday back home... so here goes the news...

In the last update I promised photos of the amazing Christmas display in the Fenwicks window... so here they are:
They also officially switched on the Christmas lights in Newcastle, and with the snow that arrived end November they looked lovely!
When last I wrote I was on my way to attend a Trauma conference in Truro (Cornwall) with Stuart and Renee. Stuart and I flew down on the Friday before the conference, while Renee flew a day earlier to go visit her folks as well. The flight itself was an adventure in that we were delayed by 4 hours... we flew BMI and their plane in Newcastle was broken, so they had to wait for the plane to fly in from Exeter that afternoon so it could then take us back. We were not impressed, Newcastle airport isn’t that large and I have been there enough times that the shops are very uninteresting. So we sat there 6 hours in total, twiddling our thumbs! I managed to read a newspaper from front cover to back cover in this time, much to Stuart’s amusement, as I had a tendency of exclaiming about the stupidity of articles or get annoyed about the state of the world. Now I know why I don’t read newspapers... I’d definitely develop high blood pressure!

But we eventually made it to Exeter and picked up our hire car, though we didn’t have much time to explore Exeter since it was getting dark and we had a two hour drive to our B&B in Truro. The drive turned out to be exciting, since Stuart’s sat nav decided to take us along country roads, which had no street lights and no road signs and were very narrow and winding... it was quite an experience! I was relieved I hadn’t offered to drive!

The B&B was lovely, and was the original coach house from way back when. It had a long drive leading to it (with many potholes) and our individual rooms were quaint with a bit of a country theme to them. Definitely way too many ornaments and frills for my taste, but it suited the atmosphere of the house!



Renee met up with us at the B&B and then we went into Truro itself to grab a bite to eat. Truro is called a city, since it has a cathedral, but is so tiny we had no problems walking from one end of the city centre to the other. We managed to find a nice Indian restaurant and enjoyed some curry, before heading back to the B&B.

The conference the next day was meant to be hosted at the Eden Project, but with the heavy rains that Cornwall had experienced the week before, the buildings had flooded, so they moved the conference to the local Truro college, which was much quicker for us to get to.

The first day was filled back-to-back with lectures... they managed to get exceptional speakers and every talk seemed to be more interesting than the next! But it was a long day, and I felt as if my brains had been fried by the end of it! So we had a quick bite of pizza before heading back to the B&B and collapsing into bed!

The next day was a skills day, more practical based, and was held at the Peninsula medical school. Again this was stunning, but I was still quite drained from the day before.

That evening Renee headed off to her parents once again. Stuart and I stayed another night at the B&B and then drove back to Exeter the next morning to catch our flight back to Newcastle. I am pleased to say that this flight was uneventful, and Cornwall is beautiful from the air!

And then as end November arrived, it brought a lot of snow to the UK. Even Newcastle was affected, and chaos abounded! I quite enjoyed the first week of it, before it started becoming a chore to walk to Uni. And it didn’t help that on one of the coldest days the heating packed up in the medical school, though it was fixed within a day. It started taking over an hour to walk to Uni in the mornings as the walkways were not cleared. I was grateful for my purchase of Wellingtons boots (see photo... they were sold to raise money for Breast Cancer research, hence the pink!) a few weeks prior, as I started to use them daily (and my thermal socks)!

The view from my bedroom window overlooking our street. It looked really lovely, especially on days when the sun came out.

But on days when we had blizzards, I really didn’t look forward to leaving the warmth of my bed and making my way into Uni!

Even at the hospital chaos reigned as many healthcare professionals who lived further away couldn’t get into work.

The snow lasted two weeks and then stopped.

During this time I also finished the last of my theory lectures at the University. They were very interesting, especially the week when we had forensic pathology, as the medical school converted our huge lecture theatre into a court room and invited the medical law students and their professors along to stage a mock trial! Naturally we thoroughly enjoyed our professor being put through this “trial” for medical negligence, though we were held in contempt by the judge due to our over enthusiasm!!

And, at the end of our term of theory, came the exams. Two three hours papers that were absolutely horrific! But after that I flew back to South Africa for two weeks to spend Christmas with the folks, which is always nice.

Now I am back doing practical work, as all the theory has been completed (and passed!) in my course. We are now doing what is known as “student selected components” (SSC), meaning we can choose which aspects of medicine we want to learn more of. We have 3 six week blocks to fill with whatever subject we choose.

I am busy doing Acute and Chronic Pain Management as my first SSC, and it falls under the supervision of the anaesthetics department. So far it has been quite interesting seeing how they treat pain, but as part of my SSC I have to complete an audit too, which is not as much fun! I am undertaking a survey in which I give all the new patients to the pain clinic a questionnaire to fill in to see how satisfied they are with their consultations. I start handing out the questionnaires this week.

Otherwise I have been doing a bit of sightseeing with Nicola. We visited another National Trust site in Northumberland called Wallington one weekend, and though the house was closed for the winter, we still managed to walk around the extensive gardens and then warmed up with some tea in their tearoom!

We were quite surprised with how much snow was still lying around the grounds, as Newcastle’s had all melted by this time. But the temperature did read 1 degree when we left the car that day! Brrr!

The only thing to do when one finds a beheaded and delimbed statue is to play the fool!

Wallington house from the front, complete with odd looking gargoyle heads!

And then it was my birthday. The day itself was spent quietly, as I was in the pain clinic that morning, though Fiona and I did go see Harry Potter in the cinema that afternoon.

But on the Saturday afterwards I made some traditional South African fare and invited a group of friends around to share it with me. On the menu was Bobotie and Yellow rice (though it was made with Vegetarian mince as half of the group were vegetarian) and for dessert I made Koeksisters and Milktart. I’d also bought Appletiser and South African wine to drink.

It was a fantastic evening that lasted until 2am and everyone loved the food! I was also very spoilt by my dear friends, and they made me a stunning cake that looked like melting candles!

While Abby, Fiona and Sahira try out some of their moves to the music of Freshlyground (top), Renee and Nicola just watch (below)

Iro and Sahira help themselves... the table was rather full of food!

The amazing candle cake that Fiona baked for me!

And thats all my news, all in one!