La fin de semaine
Jul. 10th, 2006 12:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ewtIt's been a busy weekend and at the same time, not very busy.
Friday night I went with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hairyears to an NHS Walk-In Centre at a hospital after meeting him and finding him ill enough to warrant medical attention. As it turns out, that was the right thing to do.
My weekend has basically been divided between teaching, keeping myself fit to function, and visitinghairyears. It's actually been remarkably productive given the circumstances.
It wasn't as busy as I'd thought it might be on a Friday night. This is good. It was still several hours before he was seen by the doctor, though he was seen by the nurse within about 5 minutes of arriving. The doctor decided to keep him overnight; I decided to stick around until he was settled, and this turned out to be a good thing as well because it was 5am by the time he was given a permanent bed. The temporary ward he was put in during the wait was understaffed, so an extra pair of hands for things like water was good.
I dozed some, and tried to be generally useful. And I wrote some music - set Down By The Whitening Birches, by my grandmother, to music. So far I only have a solo alto part. I might add a piano accompaniment at some point, not sure. Yes, I know, the text is depressing. But really it's a long time since I did anything creative like this without a deadline, especially things relevant to my chosen primary career, so composing an entire song is pretty neat. I've also been working on Song For October Ending, set for SATB, although this will take longer because I want interesting harmony AND I want each part to be at least somewhat interesting, and I'm out of practise.
What else? Saturday morning after public transport started I grabbed a greasy spoon breakfast, went to the hotel room where he'd been planning to stay in King's Cross; collected the rest of his things (phone charger, spare clothes, washkit - he'd been planning a trip up to Leicester early that morning), checked out of the hotel, then back up to the hospital to deliver said things. Great fun with the Northern Line down, let me tell you, although the bus wasn't so bad.
Saturday I hung around at the hospital, ate hospital food, tried to be calm and comforting and generally useful, got some second-hand books for when he's feeling enough better to read (and for ME to read while I am there and he is sleeping!), and did a fair amount of dozing myself (having been awake all those hours waiting for a bed). Came home, slept, then it was Sunday morning and teaching.
After teaching (which ended early this week w00t) I went to Camden to see how my falls are doing at that stall. It didn't look like she'd sold anything and I haven't heard from her; I wonder if she's selling enough each time to account for the stallholding cost? Not sure. But the display was alright. None of mine had sold yet, but it was still early afternoon.
Got sidetracked talking toexmoor_cat. Give him a job someone please. Good to see him again. And I had icecream.
Back to the hospital where I finished my book.hairyears is much better than he was yesterday, but they're keeping him in at least another night. I asked, and he said that other than myself he'd rather not have many visitors as he won't rest as much that way and resting is really what he needs at the moment. But do keep the text messages coming. His room mate at the hospital is not a great one for (lucid but undemanding) conversations and the nurses are too busy.
Home, pizza courtesy of my lovely housematemstevens, and I really need to get to sleep soon. Amy is arriving tomorrow and the place is still a tip; it will be triage cleaning from as early as I can rouse myself in the morning. I was going to do some of it this evening, possibly with help, but I'm really not up to it.
Hospitals should have intarweb. It would make the whole experience far less isolating. But they should only have it for a limited time, say a couple of hours in the afternoon, or 30 minutes after mealtimes. Otherwise none of the geeks would get any rest at all evar, which is probably how they ended up in hospital in the first place...
They should also probably have wipe-clean keyboards. Hmm.
Friday night I went with
hairyears to an NHS Walk-In Centre at a hospital after meeting him and finding him ill enough to warrant medical attention. As it turns out, that was the right thing to do.My weekend has basically been divided between teaching, keeping myself fit to function, and visiting
hairyears. It's actually been remarkably productive given the circumstances.It wasn't as busy as I'd thought it might be on a Friday night. This is good. It was still several hours before he was seen by the doctor, though he was seen by the nurse within about 5 minutes of arriving. The doctor decided to keep him overnight; I decided to stick around until he was settled, and this turned out to be a good thing as well because it was 5am by the time he was given a permanent bed. The temporary ward he was put in during the wait was understaffed, so an extra pair of hands for things like water was good.
I dozed some, and tried to be generally useful. And I wrote some music - set Down By The Whitening Birches, by my grandmother, to music. So far I only have a solo alto part. I might add a piano accompaniment at some point, not sure. Yes, I know, the text is depressing. But really it's a long time since I did anything creative like this without a deadline, especially things relevant to my chosen primary career, so composing an entire song is pretty neat. I've also been working on Song For October Ending, set for SATB, although this will take longer because I want interesting harmony AND I want each part to be at least somewhat interesting, and I'm out of practise.
What else? Saturday morning after public transport started I grabbed a greasy spoon breakfast, went to the hotel room where he'd been planning to stay in King's Cross; collected the rest of his things (phone charger, spare clothes, washkit - he'd been planning a trip up to Leicester early that morning), checked out of the hotel, then back up to the hospital to deliver said things. Great fun with the Northern Line down, let me tell you, although the bus wasn't so bad.
Saturday I hung around at the hospital, ate hospital food, tried to be calm and comforting and generally useful, got some second-hand books for when he's feeling enough better to read (and for ME to read while I am there and he is sleeping!), and did a fair amount of dozing myself (having been awake all those hours waiting for a bed). Came home, slept, then it was Sunday morning and teaching.
After teaching (which ended early this week w00t) I went to Camden to see how my falls are doing at that stall. It didn't look like she'd sold anything and I haven't heard from her; I wonder if she's selling enough each time to account for the stallholding cost? Not sure. But the display was alright. None of mine had sold yet, but it was still early afternoon.
Got sidetracked talking to
exmoor_cat. Give him a job someone please. Good to see him again. And I had icecream.Back to the hospital where I finished my book.
hairyears is much better than he was yesterday, but they're keeping him in at least another night. I asked, and he said that other than myself he'd rather not have many visitors as he won't rest as much that way and resting is really what he needs at the moment. But do keep the text messages coming. His room mate at the hospital is not a great one for (lucid but undemanding) conversations and the nurses are too busy.Home, pizza courtesy of my lovely housemate
mstevens, and I really need to get to sleep soon. Amy is arriving tomorrow and the place is still a tip; it will be triage cleaning from as early as I can rouse myself in the morning. I was going to do some of it this evening, possibly with help, but I'm really not up to it.Hospitals should have intarweb. It would make the whole experience far less isolating. But they should only have it for a limited time, say a couple of hours in the afternoon, or 30 minutes after mealtimes. Otherwise none of the geeks would get any rest at all evar, which is probably how they ended up in hospital in the first place...
They should also probably have wipe-clean keyboards. Hmm.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-10 12:05 am (UTC)http://www.ehiprimarycare.com/news/item.cfm?ID=1141
However, you can get wipe-clean keyboard covers:
http://www.protectcovers.com/
http://www.compucover.com/KS_Info.html
*guess who's bored!*
no subject
Date: 2006-07-10 05:30 am (UTC)When I worked there, I spent a lot of time wiping down the keyboards and then going "yuck"
no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 12:55 pm (UTC)thanks,
Hemma
no subject
Date: 2006-07-11 10:44 pm (UTC)E-mail me at ewtikins@livejournal.com and we can discuss options? What part of London are you in? What piano tuition have you had before, if any? Do you have access to an instrument on which to practise? What do you want to learn?
:)