The first night shift I worked was in August 1985.
Things were different then - that shift was sixteen hours long and I was called
in from home each time I was needed. Starting at five o’clock in the afternoon
and working through till nine o’clock the next morning I did work on half a
dozen patients, finished the last call at half past midnight and was in bed for
most of the night.
These days we work an eleven-hour night shift for
which we are up all night. I had work from over fifty different patients, did
weekly maintenance on eight different analysers, and walked over five thousand
steps between my watch re-setting at midnight and the early shift coming in at
quarter to eight. Judging from the distances that I walk round the woods that’s
about two and a quarter miles, or slightly less than the longer walk round
Orlestone woods.
I shall spark up the “Map My Walk” app on my
next night shift.
At four o’clock this morning my phone beeped. A couple
of new geocaches had gone live withing a couple of miles of home. Maybe I could
get a quick First to Find on my way home?
As I walked to my car I called up those caches on my
phone to plan my route… both had been found for the first time by quarter past
six… I took a deep breath and drove straight home where I went to bed for the
morning.
Despite having been up all night I slept poorly. I got
maybe a couple of hours sleep and got up (feeling like death warmed up)
at midday. With still no news from the drain-rodding people I had a little look
at the drains. The water lever had subsided a lot since yesterday. It was still
higher than it should have been, but nowhere near as high as it had been
yesterday. Realistically it could have been like that for weeks (and
probably has been). I took a chance, put a load of washing in, made toast
and had a little look at the Internet. It was much the same as ever.
With washing washed I thought I might iron the shirts
whilst they were still damp. Shirts always iron better when damp…
I spent half an hour trying to repair the ironing
board. Whilst I hadn’t been looking er indoors TM” had
done some ironing and in the process had comprehensively destroyed the ironing
board. I had a go with hammer, screwdriver and mole grips, and eventually got
the thing useable with a length of string.
I did the ironing whilst watching a couple of episodes
of “The Man In The High Castle” which were rather good. We did “FEED
THE FISH”, then with the weather cheering up we went up to the woods.
We walked a rather shorter version of our standard
walk. Bailey rolled in something disgusting and Treacle tried to eat a
long-dead chaffinch. But “er indoors TM” got
to see the bluebells so that was a result.
I must admit I expected that the woods would be
heaving with the world and his wife going to see the bluebells, but the car
park was quiet, and once we were away from the car park we didn’t see anyone at
all.
We came home and had a rather good bit of dinner which
we scoffed whilst watching the second “Stand Up To Cancer” episode of Bake
Off which featured four so-called celebrities. I’d actually heard of one of
them…
For a day which is post night shift I’ve walked nearly
eighteen thousand steps…
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