23 November 2015 (Monday) - Cold

Another restless night; I shall have to steer clear of these all-you-can-eat buffets in future. Rather than laying in bed with stomach ache I decided to get up and have stomach ache instead. A brekkie of coffee and toast went some way to settling things.
As I scoffed I watched an episode of "Dad's Army" which the SkyPlus box had thoughtfully recorded over the weekend. Much as I quite llike that show I'm coming to the conclusion that it would have been a lot better if it had not had Clive Dunn as Corporal Jones in the cast. There is a limit to how many times that they don't like it up 'em.

It was rather cold as I left home this morning. For the first time this year I had to scrape ice off of my car. That means that winter has officially arrived.
As I drove I listened to the radio. And I got just the teensiest bit wound up. Apparently hospitals are now not allowed to pay the extortionate fees that locum agencies charge for staff. Payments to agencies will be capped. At first sight this seems a sensible idea because these payments cost the NHS a fortune. However the NHS needs locum workers because it can't fill the vacancies it has. Jobs are advertised; no one applies for them. And so agency workers are used to do the jobs that demonstrably no one else wants to do. And these locum workers are (in large part) coming from overseas attracted by the good money. But this money is not going to be there any more. If the money isn't offered then people won't travel half way round the world. And so there vacancies won't be filled.
The obvious solution is to pay a wage that attracts staff in the first place. Why should someone study for five years to attain a post in a hospital which only pays half the wage a trainee train driver gets after six months.

There was also an interview with Ed Milliband (the previous leader of the Labour party). He seemed to appear to be very good in that he didn't run down Jeremy Corbyn in any way. But he was strangely silent when asked to comment about how the Labour party is effectively dead in the water.
He was also rather non-committal when it was mentioned that he's apparently said to his critics “I bet you didn’t think things would actually get worse”.
The Labour party annoys me. they could do so much better.

Last week I mentioned about having a vague plan to fill my geo-calendar. Today was a date on which I'd not previously logged a find, and so locating a sandwich box was on the cards for something to do before work.
According to the geo-map there was a large cache hidden not very far from work so once I'd visited Morrisons I went for a look-see. According to the instructions on-line the cache was near (but not in) an old derelict shed. As I walked up to the shed I saw a large plastic box with an "Official Geocache" sticker. This box was laying upside down in the middle of a field. I collected it, and followed my GPS to where the cache was supposed to be. The lid and cache contents were strewn around the area. It had obviously been deliberately trashed. Bearing in mind that the nearby derelict shed was exactly the sort of place where I would play when a youngster I can't help but think that kids have found it and wrecked it.

I went on to work and did my bit. And then came home again. The evening wasn't quite as cold as the morning had been, for which I was grateful.
Steve and Sarah delivered chocolate (which was to be encouraged), and then "er indoors TM" went bowling. I ironed shirts and spent a little longer fiddling with my new Wherigo...


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