Chop Chop

Q - How many people noticed my new hair cut this week?

A - No one, not even the boyfriend who met me after going to the hairdressers!

Sigh... If he had that much removed he'd be bald!

The Old a Operating Theatre & Herb Garret

A group of friends and I went to visit London the other day to check out the Old Operating Theatre which is the oldest operating theatre in Europe. 

You had to climb up a rickety spiral stair case and first went through the area where St Thomas' Hospital used to dry all their herbs and prepare their medicines, there were lots of interesting things to look round and a lot of them you could touch so it was really interactive. 

Here's some lovely bits of bodies.

Just floating around. 

And some old branded medicines - life tonic doesn't sound as catchy these days does it?

And my learning point of the day - Senna is a herb! Senna is a popular medicine on the wards as a laxative (painkillers can really back you up), and I had no idea it was a regular herb of the same name. 

Some heroin which of course you used to be able to buy over the counter as a cough suppressant amongst other things. 

And a bottle of cocaine, love the danger sign on it, you'd never get away with such a small warning and no child proof top nowadays would you. 

This is the old fashioned way of making pills on the above board, they'd all be cut into equal shape and size by using this board. 

We all were pretty horrified by the cervical dilator... don't fancy that thanks very much!

And you might have seen my previous post about traditional nurses belts? 

There were a lot of sweet nursing trinkets. 

And then it was through to the operating theatre, they call them operating rooms in America because I suppose they weren't set out like a theatre to have spectators.

You can still see the cut marks in the wooden bench where... one assumes there were amputations?

And they had all the right tools for it too! Infection rates would have been high because they wouldn't have necessarily washed these (or their blood soaked aprons) in between patients. Long live the NHS eh?

iPhone 5s

I got the new iPhone 5s the other week, I'm not one to get the latest gadgets normally but my contract was up so I thought I'd go for it...

Decided to go for the gold because I thought it'd be funny

It isn't so different from my last iPhone but now I get Siri and the phone unlocks by finger print (which I took delight in testing). I'm liking the phone but I am of course now terrified of breaking it.

Duxford - Imperial War Museum

The boyfriend and I decided we'd rather like a trip out the other weekend and so we took the boyfriend's nephew to Duxford, the Imperial War Museum. 

It was fab, I hadn't been since I was a child (and I have to say I'm not as big on planes and cars and boats as the boys are but it was great!).

There was a lot of history but also fun stuff you could touch like different guns and uniforms for kids to try on etc. 

All different sections to go to. The boyfriend's nephew liked any section where there was a gun to pretend to shoot (when I asked who he was pretending to shoot he said Hitler... so I said fair enough..?). 

A lot of attention to detail - not quite sure where they managed to purchase dead cow models from but there we are. 

And luckily the weather held out for us. They had small aircraft flying round which we all enjoyed watching, you could go for a ride in them but the prices were VERRRY expensive so we decided to pass that up.

I particularly enjoyed a small American display about the servicemen that came over from the states as my grandfather did and it had all their uniforms and rations, bomber jackets etc. I think they were rather popular with the English girls because they could get hold of silk stockings which the poor English chaps couldn't. 

I also found a bargain in the gift shop!

A collection of recipes the government issued to people during the second world war for rations which I found interesting to read (and of course you could make the recipes). 

Then it was back home to construct a harrier and a helicopter from wood - also from the gift shop (see the numbered parts below on the sheet of paper? Those were the instructions!) with the boyfriend's nephew which involved much swearing and super glue and absolutely no help from the boyfriend! But like the ladies on the home front in WW2 I got the work done without the help of men haha. 

Also, children get in free - a good trip out for those with lots of them! The boyfriend's nephew loved it and declared proudly that he also loved war which made me chuckle.

Scaresville

I got a text late yesterday from my friend Kiran - do you want to go to Scaresville tonight? I wasn't exactly sure what this was but I said yeah sure and so we took a long car journey down the windy country roads to.... 

Which is held at an old country manor house in the very expansive grounds and out buildings. It was a full moon (I'll apologise now for the crap night time photography - awfully sorry) so there was a fair bit of light outside

As we arrived we got our tickets (pre order, it's busy!) and waited for our group to be called for the Scaresville trail. They had an area to wait in called the Unfairground which was pretty fun, we took a photo with a creepy gypsy fortune teller

And then walked through, there were lots of food stands and fairground food like candy apples and popcorn etc

Along with spooky props and halloween music

They had a fire juggler and a ring master in a michael jackson-esque mirrored jacket and lime green bowler hat who called out the next groups to go through to the trail

And then you walked over to the stables part of the grounds and lined up in groups of 8, you had to stand single file with one arm on the person in front of you's shoulder, one arm to feel the wall and ceiling, it's pitch black in a lot of the trail which is a maze through the dark lasting for about an hour through buildings, forest, grass, hay bales - all sorts. It was great, I think I was pretty brave (I even went through the creepy clown tent first - get me!). But Max, Kiran's much beloved boyfriend, bravely led us most of the trail though (although he had several incidents where he walked headlong into walls but this did not faze him). 

The trail is full of scarers dressed up, sometimes you can see them, sometimes you can't. The can't touch you and you can't touch them but they made us jump a lot! Scaresville sold pants this year because last year they had a few people wet themselves (and more besides that!). There were all sorts of scary things, including someone with a real chainsaw but I won't give all the secrets away. Well worth a visit though. At the end of the scary trail (in which we were very much terrorised!) you come through to a bar which was very decorative and you can watch the other people getting scared on the monitors they use which was pretty funny. 

Also they sold really tasty spiced apple (and mulled wine, shots, tea etc) which we needed for our throats after all the screaming and laughing. Beware, if you go with people you don't know that well; you will become very well acquainted after spending an hour clutching them in terror! 

Go and check it out they still have tickets - http://www.scaresville.co.uk/ and theres a funny video on there of one room of the Scaresville trail.

Nursing Traditions

Nursing is an old profession, and naturally there are a lot of nursing traditions but healthcare is moving strongly towards evidence based practice and so these traditions sometimes phase out. 

Some traditions you enjoy doing, like always making a bed with the opening of the pillow case facing away from the door because that's how Florence Nightingale did it in the Crimean War when they had to nurse soldiers in tents; facing the pillows away from the door meant that they didn't get filled with sand blowing through the tent. 

Some traditions you feel very glad they no longer allow, such as taste testing urine (ick) - we have urine dip sticks now thank goodness. 

I am looking forward to one tradition though in particular, when a nurse graduates, it is tradition for her family to buy her a silver belt buckle. Usually these are antique Victorian buckles (some from the 1800s) but of course you can buy new buckles styled as an antique for less.

Feliway

This Christmas Mr Pussycat shall be accompanying us to stay at my Mum's house where his two girl cousin pussycats reside. And so of course chaos shall ensue... perhaps... I thought I'd trial out this plug in thing called Feliway which is some sort of Xanax for cats as far as I can gather. 

It's only been on for two days and Pussycat loves it and keeps sitting next to it which is fine by me. I haven't noticed any big behaviour changes apart from he's a little calmer but to be honest he's normally a well adjusted thing and doesn't misbehave. It lasts for a month so we'll see how it goes and if it's good it'll be coming on the journey to good old Devizes with us. 

Banksy

Some of you might know that I'm a partial to a bit of Banksy and although I did see the Sistine Chapel over the summer this year (not to mention a lot of other artwork around Rome) I still remain a lot more appreciative of Banksy. 

So I thought I'd order his book off of Amazon and it's rather good and not too expensive. About £8 with P&P.

Some of it is thoughtful

Some silly

But it is always delivered with a sense of humour

This Weeks Post

Hello chums, I thought I'd tell you what I've got in the post this past week. Did any of you watch Blackout? It was a drama documentary about different families during a terror attack on the electricity grid which I thought was rather good but of course you know I like prepping and I decided that a blackout is rather plausible after watching the show about it. 

And so I decided to order one of these to keep stashed away for a rainy day, it was only £26 with delivery and it filters up to 99.99% of all harmful substances out of any water apart from sea water. And it's good to filter at least 1000 litres of water. So you can just drink from a muddy puddle (should you so wish) or a river and not have to fear getting dysentery or something rank. Also 1000 litres is a lot, if you drank 8 cups of water every day through the straw it'd last you 3 years. I read they give these straws out in a lot of developing countries with unclean drinking water. 

I also decided to get a wind up/solar panel am/fm radio which was about £18.

 

I have a wind up torch already but I thought it might be useful in case I need to hear emergency government broadcasts or, more likely, if I get a bit bored and fancy a dance to some music. It's quite fun to play with at any rate. I don't think the solar charge would be so great unless you had it in the direct sunlight for hours.

Next thing I think to make is a first aid kit (which every house should have anyway).

 Oh lastly, look what the lovely HMRC sent me in the post to repay the tax I've over paid, a big fat cheque. Why thank you so much HMRC.