More Old Pictures of Jean being Cute (by sarah)

This pictures are now more than a year old! Wow time really cos quickly when your not looking doesnt it?

Jean and the kittens had a strange relationship in that they would allow her to man handle them when food was involved and she would drop her food off the edge of the high chair inorder to attract them. I took this photo whilst telling both the subjects that they where naughty - the kitten for jumping up onto a 'table' which by this point it knew it wasnt allowed to do and Jean for purposly throwing her food to attract cats etc...

I had to take the obligatory photo of the baby having a bath in the sink - I found the sink far easier to use that then the baby bath and this was the case right up until the flooding. Being a cruel and heartless mother I just had to spike her hair with the shampoo foam and turn her into a little imp - still she really loved it 🙂 (though thats not this picture even though I know I definatly took one with the spike - oh well)

Trouble up Stream (by sarah)

The level of the stream has dramatically and drastically risen even though it is not raining - someone up stream is doing something something like opening the gates to an artificial lake or some other man made resevoir and they did not tell us. This happened once before when a dam to the fisher broke sending a surge of water down to us nocking Gilbert (Barbaras little boy statue) off his feet. This is a slower rise as in there isn't an obvious wave of water traveling down stream but never the less something is happening somewhere. The water is still rising and the poor guys who where fixing the tunnel have got water in their wellies and all sorts!

It has also proceeded to wash away all the work they had done yesturday and this morning which of course is bad news 🙁 The cement obvious needs time to dry and the such like - sigh sometimes I wonder if this is all ever going to be put right.

On the bright side however the skip has arrived for the removal of our kitchen and our plaster!! This has made me really happy as it feels like things are really moving this time.

Mum and Dads 28th Anniversary (by sarah)

I know that this wasn't even their last anniversary but the one before! But I've had these pictures in drafts on the blog for so long that they got pushed to the back where I didn't see it and therefore being me forgot about them :/

I was still on crutches at the time but we went to a nice Indian Resturant in Hornchurch with David and Michelle as well. It was the first time Jean drank by her self from a glass - I belive there is a photo here of that cute event somewhere 🙂

Hope Springs Eternal (by sarah)

I am currently being sad becuase Alaric has just headed off for yet another week in London but I am also feeling really hopeful as the builders may infact be starting tomorrow on our house. Woot!!!

Unfortunatly this isnt quiet as good as it sounds as it all depends on the weather - they currently have an outside job which is weather dependent so if it rains we get the workmen if it doesnt we wont see them until the earliest mid Feb :/ Still things are once again moving.

So for the first time in a very long time (ie since being in Kenya) I find myself hoping for rain :/ A bit ironic really when you consider this was all cuased by the rain in the first place - oh welll what goes around comes around 🙂

My Solution to the NHS (by sarah)

Having spent alot of time stuck in hospitals or on waiting lists I then fall off of or never got the letter that told me I had an appointment I thought I would write down how I'd run things if I had complete power!

I would allow privatee patients - but this would not entitle you to jump queues or get better medicine - all it would mean is that you'd get a private room with TV wifi etc... you would still get the same food as that should be regulated to your specific condition. (I did lots of thinking about this whilst in hospital! Especially when they forgot to fed me).

I would also use the private rooms for over spill if there were bed shortages and the pivate patients would get a refund and have to lump it.

I would try and stop the 'us and them' attitude between the doctors and nurses by making drs train as nurses first. (I know this is major over hall of our current education of medical professionals) I would also make them work on ambulances as ambulance stuff before they could qualify etc... and probably make them do 'reminder' stints after qualification.

I would make sure that any management type people have a medical back ground so that (hopefully) they will know what is essential and what is not - again being a nurse first would help with this - they would realise that pillows and blankets are actually needed.

For washing people ect.. I would encourage the spanish system of having the family do it (if they are able to/willing) and only use hospital stuff for that when needed.

I would get food preperation people to come and over hull all the wards and operating theatres so they are easily cleaned - beleive me butches have better hygien than our hospitals. In fact our hospitals or at least the ones I've been in are badly designed in this respect with lots of nooks and crannys for the germs to lerk.

I would implement the design me and hubby came up with for effiencient and hard wearing and modular (so when a bit breaks you just replace that bit.) medical monitors for oxygen, heart rate etc... This would reduce the wires and things and I would make sure there were enough of them! I would also make sure the nurses had a basic understanding of the electronics so that they know when something is broken before the accidently use it on pregnant women and panic when they can't hear the baby (fortunatly I had been in the ward long enough to have worked out which one of the baby monitor things worked and which didnt but if I had been just admitted to the ward with a problem it would have scared me as it was the poor student nurse was in a right state).

Have nutritionist and dieticians incharge of the food so diabetics didn't end up with sugar sweetened friut juice etc (happened to my dad). This would reduce the convelesance time along with proper physiotherapy and excersises regimes for people stuck in hospital etc..

As far as GPs are concerned I would have home visits back and I would have 'check ups' ie you go and see your doctor just for a chat and to mention all those little things like the festy toe nail you wouldnt normal get around for making an appointment for (and you therefore end up causulty cos its gone green and you have a nasty fever - Alaric). I would add in a big smattering of preventative medicine here including talking therapies as well as recipies for garlic consumption for blood thinning etc... - this should in the long run decrease the number of patients in a really bad state before they go to the drs and therefore would save moeny in the long run (not something that is going to interest a government who might only be in term for the next four yrs etc...).

The other thing that I think would be essential is to get rid of medical patents this way as long as there is no longer drug company monopolys and the best treatments will be used rather than the current state of affairs - of course this would mean that alot of drug trials etc... would have to be payed for by the tax payer etc... as the companies that do the research etc... are doing it purely for profiets

The last thing I would do is give hospitals the ability to choose their own contracts for repairs etc... and have harsh penalties for companies that try to screw them over - lots of money is currently wasted on building maintance that is unnessaccery.

I would have an appointment reminder system that emailed patients/phoned them a week/day before depending on prefernce. I know there are security issues here with patient records but I am confident that they are not insermountable. I also have issues with how they are digatizing the medical records but thats another story... All I can think is that I currently have over half the records from the pregnancy missing and as the hospital technically doesn't exist anymore I doubt they will ever be recovered so the only copy of alot of stuff is what me and Alaric made copies of and its not like it was minor stuff :/

Well thats all of the top of my head and there are probably lots of problems I havent accounted for etc...