Monday

You know that feeling when you can see something bad rushing towards you, but can’t do anything to stop it?

I haven’t had a bad day in quite a while. In fact, I don’t think I’ve had a bad day since my last exam, mid November. That was until this week. This week was not a good week. I got through it, but mostly by denial on Monday and Tuesday; and from Wednesday on because I knew I had a fantastic weekend coming up. And it’s been a fantastic weekend. Walking through the wind and the rain, across a bog in fact, on Saturday. With 3 wonderful companions, who complained not a peep that I led them into a dead end valley in that awful weather. And then going swimming today with those same marvelous people. I love swimming. I couldn’t tell you the last time I went, but I made up for it today. I love rock climbing too, couldn’t tell you the last time I did that. Or archery, I find that very relaxing, but I don’t know when I last did that either.

So; there we are. A superb, energetic, de-stressing weekend. It’s over now.

All I have to look forward to is Monday. And a 9am until 8pm day. Staring at a computer screen, desperately trying to work out what to write. It is not an appealing prospect.

But what’s even less appealing is the fact that I will be doing the same the day after. Admittedly, not quite as late into the evening. And then again the next day. And again after that. The same thing, over and over, for weeks on end.

I can see it coming.

The hopelessness.

The circular reasoning.

Dreading sleep each night, because all it does is hasten the arrival of the coming day.

I hate it. I hate feeling this way. I hate… I hate feeling that all I’m dreading is the dread itself. It feels, false. Like the feeling is real, but the reason is not. Effect without cause.

Real enough to exist, but not real enough to stop.

The Inbetweeners Movie

I went to see the Inbetweeners movie last night with Will and Chris and I have to say, it was excellent. Not exactly intellectual, but very funny. I would highly recommend it, although how they got away with a 15 rating I have no idea. I got popcorn at the cinema, which I never do. But I’m glad I did, because the girl behind the counter added a little smile to my evening. Thanks cinema girl!

We met Kirsty and a couple of others at the pub afterwards and had a good catch up. Then I had to sneak my car with the busted exhaust back home; along the back roads to avoid the attention of the police. Probably woke the whole village when I got home it was so loud.

Table for 2

Hey folks, I’ve been absent with the craziness that is 4^th year medicine. Here’s a little something I forgot to publish before I went away to Nepal, it follows on directly from my OSCE post. Enjoy.

***

Further to my post about the OSCE, I did something else on Tuesday that genuinely caused me more apprehension than the thought of the exam itself: I asked a certain girl if she would like to go out for dinner.

Now; we are not calling this a date. Primarily this is an expectations thing. By that I mean, if you go out on a date with someone, providing all goes well, there is some expectation of there being a second date. Even assuming all goes well with dinner, *fingers crossed*, there is no expectation in my mind of it being repeated any time soon. Not least because I’m leaving the country for six weeks a mere three days afterwards. I’m not ruling out the possibility, but I’d rather not think about it, it would be so far in the future anyway.

I very nearly chicken out of it to be honest. It had to be the day of the OSCE because it would be the last time I was going to see her for who knows how long. As a result of having a fixed day, a known ‘now or never’ point if you will, I was left thinking about it rather a lot. The crazy idea only came to me about four days before the OSCE anyway, so I didn’t have ages to talk myself out of it. However, it got to the point where I was actually distracted as I stood in line, about to go to my first station. I’m putting this down to the fact she was right there next to me.

After the exam had finished, during which I hadn’t given the matter a thought by the way, I had pretty much resigned myself not to do it. We were made to wait in the stairwell as the next group went up, which was noisy and cramped, not exactly an ideal environment. I was sure as soon as we were allowed into the atrium, everyone would be milling about in groups and there was no way I’d be able to get her alone. Well, I walked through the doors and would you believe it, she was standing right there by herself. Where her friends had gone I have no idea, they were all ahead of me in the stairwell. I don’t believe in fate, but it certainly felt like the world was sending me a message. Hell, the world was slapping me around the face with a cold fish shouting, “you better bloody do this now, you aren’t ever going to get a better chance.”

With that kind of pressure on me I could hardly ignore it. So I made small talk for a little while and then; just asked. To give you some context, this is only the second time in my life that I’ve directly asked a girl, who previously I’d only been friends with, on a sort-of-date-like-thing.

“Hey, so remember how after community course I said we should go to pizza express?”
“Yes.”
“And we never did.”
“Mmm”
“Well I was thinking we should.”
“Yes.” I wasn’t sure if this was a ‘yes, we should, maybe, at some time in the future’ or a ‘yes, we should definitely go, let’s make plans now’.
“Sooo, would you like to?”
“ *more emphatically* Yes!” Ah, so the first yes was a real yes then. Damn my insecurities!
“So, this weekend?” Yes. I know I’m saying ‘so’ a lot. It felt that way at the time too. But the more I tried to not say it, the more I said it. I really was nervous, even after she said yes. The second time.
“I can’t really do this weekend at all…” Aww crap, that’s not really very good because:
“Oh. I’ve got some things planned for next week, I’m not really sure when I’ll be free…”
“Oh.” Aww crap.
“How about you give me your number and we can work it out when we both know what we’re doing?” Shit did I just ask for her number? That wasn’t part of the plan. Ok ok just go with it.
“Don’t you already have it?”
“No, don’t think so.”
“Ok, do you having anything to write on?”
“Err… *casing about…* Here, use my OSCE number label. *peels it off shirt*”
“And a pen?”
“Yup.” Knew I brought that for a reason.
…
*pen poised*
…
“I can’t remember it.”
“What?”
“I can’t remember my number. Wow this is really embarrassing.” You’re telling me!
“Oh. Ok.” At this point I wasn’t sure whether she really couldn’t remember it, or was simply realizing that she desperately didn’t want to go through with this and looking for a way out. “How about you email it too me?”
“Ok” Well she would say that, I’ll believe it when I see it. “Anyway, I better go.”
“Yeah, me too. So, see you later.”
“See you later. Bye.”

This time round certainly went more smoothly that last time, but I definitely made more of a fool of myself. Maybe it doesn’t come through in the retelling, but I did. Even though she said yes, I still felt like an idiot. But that’s ok, isn’t it? I mean, girls find that endearing don’t they? When we make a fool of ourselves doing something like this? I hope so anyway.

Lunch

I got as far as setting my bowl on the kitchen counter for breakfast this morning, but no further. Getting up at 11am didn’t help, and I was so determined to start moving my body clock back to a more normal rhythm. But I had a nice lunch at Books and Beans with some friends, and we’ve agreed to do something over the weekend as well. Plenty to keep me occupied until uni starts again, possibly too much, I still have to get this damn critical appraisal essay done at some point. There’s a comedy evening at one of the bigger pubs tomorrow night, I’m tempted to text a couple of people and see who wants to go. We shall see how productive I’m feeling tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

Apologies, as ever my friends, for I have been neglecting you of late. 3 months and 6 days since I last posted anything, and that was an insubstantial and somewhat whiny post as it was. I have no excuse, no reason to give, other than I have had nothing to say.

Christmas has come and gone, the number of roast dinners I have eaten this festive period would almost reach double figures; perhaps the one – only – benefit of have two families to please at Christmas time. I’m afriad I was a bit naughty on Christmas day, luckily Santa had already delivered his pressies so I got away with it. I had spoken to Dad on Christmas Eve you see, and we had made some vague plan that I would come round in the afternoon. I had expected him to call early to set a firm time, honestly I did, but when when he didn’t; well I made no effort to call him. In fact I let the whole day go by without troubling to contact him. I know, I was bad, but I didn’t really care to be honest. The only people I wanted to see on Christmas day was my mum, my dog, and Tom. We did have a neighbour round for lunch, her husband died last winter and, what with the snow, it wouldn’t really have been sensible for her to try and travel to see her family.

Ah yes, the snow, I must tell you about that. Quite some fun we’ve been having here in the north east. (For a second there I thought I shouldn’t tell you that, you would know where I am! Then I realized the days when I was anonymous are long gone.) Yes the snow. I didn’t have any trouble with it myself, but it’s been quite a pain for some. Actually I quite enjoyed it. Even driving in these treacherous conditions is a challenge I relish. Sometimes, if I’m feeling really adventurous, I’ll even try and get a bit of a slid going on the corners. Then I go and manage it, scare myself shitless and vow never to do it again!

Then we had new year. Following a tradition set down many years ago, Katharine had a party at her house. A civil affair you understand, parents attend as well as us young ‘hooligans’, but alcohol is consumed, merriment is made and a right good time is had by all. You must excuse me for going all woolly there, just I quite enjoy seeing everyone again. Then of course the parents go home and the hooligans (that’s us) set ourselves up for a night on the living room floor. A couple of people left for another friends house, every year she has a new year party too, I don’t think it would be unfair to call it a more raucous event. Every year it clashes with Katharine’s and every year some compromise is come to. Anyway, the loss of two of our number left 7 standing (actually we were lying down in our sleeping bags by this point I suppose). Eventually, it was sometime around 3 or 4am, it was just me and Amy left awake. She was having terrible trouble with the boy sleeping next to her, he was “a roller” you see, and kept rolling on top of her sleeping bag and giving her less and less space to sleep in. I could move over any because I had another girl lying the other side of me. I was really only awake at this point because I thought it rude to fall asleep and leave Amy alone with Mr Space Invader. No, far more polite to stay awake and laugh at her. Poor girl, probably just wanted me to shut up by the time we reached the early hours. Luckily I did in the end, although not before sleep deprivation almost made me do something quite stupid, something that I would have greatly regretted in the morning. I can say no more dear reader, for I fear both and Amy and possibly my mother read this blog, and I would rather neither knew to what I allude

Hope you have a prosperous new year, sincerely hope we speak again soon. x

Complex regional pain syndrome type 1

I apologize for the lack of posts over the last few weeks. I was trying to compose something decent to fill you in on what I’ve missed, but really don’t have the motivation right now. My flatmate has just come home with a couple of friends and put some music on. It’s 11pm and I really want to sleep, but I just feel a bit shit. I hate to moan, but I equally hate feeling so up and down without telling anyone. I have been feeling slightly sick almost all day. Sort of a background of indigestion overlaid with the vague notion I would like to vomit. It peaked after meals and fell away as time went on, but was ever-present. I was still hungry and still ate three times, even if that did make it worse.

I had a second pointless visit to my community course patient this morning, so I had to get dressed up. It wasn’t a chore, she was very nice, just didn’t really have much to tell us. Then a couple of lectures in the afternoon from a doctor who had very fun slides, but a distinctly un-fun lecturing style. Admittedly it wasn’t the most riveting of content, but I found his voice pretty soporific. The two best bits of my day were both jammed into the space between 4pm and 6pm. I finally got the cheque from the girl who drove into my car in the hospital car park, which means I will shortly not be driving round with a huge dent the size of New York in my car. And then I had coffee with Becky. It was nice to geek out for a bit, I mean, in the grander scheme of things, does it really matter which theatre is the emergency theatre? Probably not, but it’s fun to delve into the (at times barely functioning) system that keeps our hospitals running from 5pm Friday to 8am Monday. I sincerely hope that living together next year will let us spend more such ‘quality’ time together; hell, we might even talk about something other than medicine, although it seems unlikely, there’s still a whole lot of that to cover. I always come away from our coffee meets enthused about medicine; they’re good for me. Then of course I came back to the flat and had a huge revision slump, so instead I had dinner, felt sick and spent 45 minutes wrapped up in my duvet on the sofa watching Star Trek to cheer up again. Like I said, up and down kinda day, like the weather.

Work, eat, play, repeat

Saturday I got up at a reasonable time, not early exactly, but not bad for a weekend, and got straight into studying. I simply have too much work to do and too little time to do it in to be faffing around. My only goal was to complete the gastrointestinal system by the end of the weekend, which I achieved.

After a late lunch with mum I got my hair cut in Kemnay. It was actually done by a girl who was 2 years below me at secondary school, she recognised me, which was awkward as I couldn’t remember her name. She didn’t do a bad job, although it was a little more severe than I was really looking for. With that done I came back into town and to the flat. I decided that since I had finished GI, I would give myself the rest of the day off, I watched a couple of episodes of Gilmore Girls to pass the time. I had chili left over from Thursday night for tea, then I stayed up late reading a book I ordered off the internet the other day. I won’t tell you what it was, but let’s just say the target audience would probably be a few years younger than I and lacking a Y chromosome. I enjoy a good hard SciFi novel as much as the next geek, but occasionally it’s nice to spend a couple of hours munching through 178 large typeface pages wrapped in a pink binding.

Sunday was, unfortunately, a simlilarly unproductive day studying-wise. I had hoped to get some respiratory system written up, or start on cardiovascular instead, but it just wasn’t happening. I played a few games of badminton with Becky at 3pm, resulting in a three matchs each draw. Then I hopped the short distance across to Catriona’s flat (maisonette, technically) for a three course meal! Originally I had just been expecting stew, but then I was bombarded with texts about butternut squash soup and apple crumble. Either way, it was all lovely, I especially liked the soup, and it was a very welcome break from left over chili (which, incidentally, I’ll be eating for the next two nights). I hadn’t realized Catriona was such a good cook, or I would have gotten off my ass and asked her out sooner! Well, that’s not exactly true, in fact, if I knew how many times she was going to prove me wrong, I may never have asked in the first place. But life’s more fun without a crystal ball.

Anyway, archery this evening was hard work. There were only a few of us because it’s exam time for most people, so we were shooting constantly. I could honestly not even raise my bow by the end of the night, let alone draw it. A little more training required before our first competition next Saturday I fear.

And that was my weekend. I exchanged a couple of emails with an old school friend who wishes to start nudging her life in a slightly different direction, hopefully we’ll be able to meet for coffee soon so she can tell me all about her “grand plan”. I couldn’t tell you what the Gilmore Girls episode count was for this week, although I suspect it would be somewhere between five and ten. I’m almost into the final season now, I’m aiming to make them last until the exams are over. Then I don’t know what I’ll watch. The week ahead is looking nice and busy, something on every night but Friday, so with any luck I’ll have something to blog about. Wednesday night should be particularly interesting, but you’ll have to come back then to find out why!

Friday syndrome

Friday lectures were rather boring: Upper Respiratory Tract Infections, one for adults, one for children. They were in the worst lecture theatre we have too, it’s uncomfortable, cold and the projector occasionally turns everything shades of blue. Then it was off to the A&E tutorial room for a session revising examination of the lower limb. We had the nice Australian registrar teaching us again, and I was volunteered to be the patient, not that I mind.

I had been aiming to work for the 2 hours before our last lecture, but instead I had an extended lunch and by 12:30pm we had discovered the lecturer was in London so wasn’t going to be giving us a lecture at 2pm anyway. The plan had been for Becky and I to go into town and get a Starbucks after the last lecture, but since it was cancelled I suggested we go and revise in the library for a few hours.

It took all of 15 minutes before I remembered why I hate studying in the library. It’s full of people, but so oppressively quiet that I’m afraid to even turn the pages of my notes for fear of disturbing someone. Combine that with a positivity tropical room temperature and I wasn’t taking anything in. I mean, it’s like 6°C outside so I’m all wrapped up, in there it feels about 25°C, it was like being in an oven. Becky actually put it very well:

PC: stressed, tired, headachey. Dx: Friday syndrome. Rx: Starbucks.

After about 50 minutes I had given up, but how to ask Becky if she wanted to call it a day? The atmosphere in that library precluded even a few whispered words, and I wasn’t even that keen on writing a note for fear that the rustling of moving paper would earn me a stern look from someone. I though about sending a text, but what if she didn’t notice? The length of time I agonized over this decision is testament to my mental state at the time. My stroke of genius was to type it out on my iPhone and past it across the table. This worked well, although there was a moment of panic when Becky almost dropped my iPhone on the table. I have no doubt this extremely noisy action would have resulted in us both being physically thrown out the window (we were on the 3^rd floor).

On the short drive into the centre of town I explained all the minor faults my car has picked up over the years, “the brakes aren’t that great… the windscreen is effectively being held together by a sticker… the central locking just stopped working (I suspect cause of the cold since it’s back now, albeit intermittently)… driver’s door, not the best…” forgot to mention the minor oil leak too. Still, we got there without incident, despite our route including the Mounthooly roundabout. The number of accidents, incidents and near misses I’ve both witnessed and been involved in beggars belief. I should add I’ve never had an accident in my car, the only thing I’ve ever done is drive into the telegraph pole on our street, at about 2mph, while parallel parking. It was a case of, “oops, seems my car is a bit longer than I though,” there wasn’t a scratch on anything. In fact, touch wood, the last time I was in a road accident of any kind was years ago, I would have only been 7 or 8 when we were rear-ended at a junction. Although Catriona nearly changed that over the holidays. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to talk about that.

We got our coffees and sat at the same table by the window where Julie and I sat last year. Back then we were studying the respiratory system for the first time, we sat with our notes trying to make sense of Prof Cotter’s mad drawings. Once again, my choice of an iced drink was questioned, considering the afore mentioned single digit temperatures. After that, I’m not quite sure what we talked about for over 2 hours, although I suspect Medicine might have come up once or twice. Other than that, I was simply left with an overwhelming sense that I should like to meet Becky’s dad, he sounds like an interesting fellow. My dad, a far less interesting fellow, waited for 15 minutes in the cold just 10 metres down the street. He was under the impression I was going to sweep by with my car and pick him up. When I said “I’ll meet you at Starbucks,” what I mean was, “I’ll meet you in Starbucks.” This way he got to meet Becky anyway. He began with his preferred opening shot, “so where’s home?” This is a favourite because 9 times out of 10 he can then reply, “oh, I’ve been there, visited x, y, z.” We walked back to the car car and Becky refused my offer of a lift home, perhaps the journey in had been more traumatic than I thought? The drive back to dad’s was fine, I seem to be able to drive with other people in the car now, I used to get nervous for some reason.

Tara brought us back fish and chips for tea. I do not wish to give you the wrong ideas about her culinary abilities, she can most definitely cook, and only gave me fish and chips because I specifically requested it. Then I was asked to put my marketing hat on and design invitations for a coffee morning Tara was organising to raise money for Haiti. I was happy to as it gave me an excuse to escape to the study rather than sit in the living room watching all the soaps. Of course, dad has a PC in his office, so I was reduced to Windows XP and Office Word 2003. The temptation to but the mouse through the monitor, the keyboard through the CPU and throw the whole thing out the window was hard to resist. Still, we got there in the end, then I had to wrestle with a temperamental printer, but then, is there any other kind? They all seem to come with built in attitude. I escaped the evening with a couple of melt in the middle chocolate puddings Tara had bought but I was too full to eat.

Then it was a quick dash back to the flat to grab things I’d need for Saturday, before heading for home.

As a side note, I passed an RRU, abandoned and empty in a lay-by just the far side of Westhill. There are two other cars in the same lay-by. No damage to any other them and no police, so I doubt an RTC. I guess it was a medical call and the RRU pilot jumped in the back of the ambulance for the ride to hospital. Although I don’t even understand why an RRU would have been dispatched, unless it was on standby in Westhill. The ambulance station is on the west side of the city, I drove right past it to come home; unless there were no other units available an ambulance would have been just as fast at 11pm, the roads are empty. Guess I’ll never know.

Back again.

Well I’m back in the flat now, it’s much the same as ever… apart from two very important changes.

1. The cats have gone. Yes, that’s right, all three kittens and both cats have left the building, forever. I do not have words to express how happy this makes me. It’s not going to make me feel at home here, but it’s going to go a long way to helping. The reason the cats have gone will become evident when you read:
2. Natasha, my flatmate’s girlfriend, has moved out. I’ve only been back a few hours and Jason is still at work so I haven’t actually seen him yet, but they were broken up last I hear and I can only assume that they aren’t back together. Obviously he does break-ups far better than me. Honestly, I’m shit at them, but that’s a blog post for another time.

So there it is, two major changes, just as I start notching it up for the exams. Couldn’t have come at a better time. Yeah, I’m happy, you may have noticed. I’m also happy because I’ve just seen Catriona for the first time in a week. Doesn’t sound like much, but remember that they’ve been 8 nightmarish, hateful, revision filled days. It felt like a lot longer. I needed a hug basically, luckily I’ve got someone wonderful around who has a plentiful supply of them.

I wasn’t just seeing Catriona though, we met up at Liz and Natalie’s flat, so I got to see them for the first time in 3 weeks! Plus the macaroni cheese we had was probably much healthier than the Chinese take-away I would have been having if I had dined alone. But it gets even better! The most most exciting part of the evening happened just after we left the flat. Thanks to some refrozen slush and a poorly cambered road, Catriona’s Ka was unable to make it out of the space where it was “parked”, although “abandoned” might be a more accurate description. She tried, I tried, nothing. (My first experience driving my future car, a Ford Ka, not the best of circumstances I’ll admit. It reminds me a lot of my mum’s car: very light. The handbrake, the clutch, the steering, all very heavy in my Golf, but that’s what I’m used to.) Anyway, I tried a bit of this and a bit of that to move the thing, all to no avail. It might have been doable if there hadn’t been another car parked very close in front, I didn’t want to risk smashing a headlight, especially in a car that I may not have been insured to drive.

Rather than faff around for ages trying to drive the thing out under it’s own power, I decided we might as well just pull it out. The Golf is (much) heavier, there was enough tarmac visible in the middle of the road to get some grip, and I had a tow rope with me. The fact I had never pulled a car out of anywhere before did cause me to pause for a moment, but I’ve been taught the theory, and I do love a challenge. Tragically I never got a chance to put theory into practice. In order to pull out the Ka I had to block the road with my car. As I did that another car came along, containing 4 young-ish lads, who very chivalrously offered to give us a push instead. Simple. Everyone left safe and sound, although the lads got their own car stuck where they had parked it. It had to be pushed out as well. And I left without getting my keys back from Catriona, and no one was at the flat to let me in. More U-turns on major roads, more blocking carriageways.

It was fun, I’d do it again sometime.

Amnesic Homicide

Wednesday was supposed to be a nice, gentle, midday finish sort of day. Of course in reality it became a dashing around, constantly looking at the watch day. The morning was simple enough with two microbiology lectures form 9 until 11. Then an introduction to clinical practice lecture from a certain clinical skills director, who I did not think that much of before, but is starting to grow on me. It was the usual stuff about dress code and behaviour in clinical settings.

After the lecture I sat in the cafe for a few minutes with Julie and Kevin, but had to leave for badminton pretty quickly. I did not think through my route properly because I found myself wanting to go the wrong way up a street that had been made one way for gas mains replacement works. I thought I had navigated a route to the right side of the roadworks, but ended up just where I didn’t want to be. In the end I got off my bake and wheeled it along the pavement against the flow of traffic. Well, I wheeled it until I was passed all the pedestrians, then I got back on and cycled along the pavement, but don’t tell anyone, I normally look disapprovingly at people who cycle on the pavement.

John was waiting at the Sports Village when I go there, he was meeting another friend. We went in together and down to the sports hall. Incredibly, there were even more people there than on Monday, so in the hour and a half I got two games. Still, I probably wasn’t up to the thrashing I got on Monday, so it was all for the best. The addition of more people also mean that the proportion of people who I was better than increased, although my ability to put the shuttle where I wanted it actually got worse. Still, I’m there to get better.

I was late leaving the Sports Village because we over ran a bit and I had to get changed again as well. I cycled a full speed (read: not very fast) back up the hill to home to switch mode of transport. It would have slightly defeated the purpose of meeting Steph at Argos to help her move a new desk if I arrived on my bike. More suitable motorized transport secured, I drove the short distance there and arrived only a couple of minutes late. We got the desk in the car no problem, although we did have a funny moment when Steph automatically went to the offside of the car, which would of course be the passenger side in Canada, and tried to get in. I let her open the door and move to step in before pointing out that, unless she had suddenly obtained a British driving license, I would prefer it if I drove the car. Her flat is well placed for both uni and town, which I’m quite jealous of. I mean, I’m nice and close to the hospital, but the trek back from town is on the long side.

I went straight from there to Morrisons. I needed only two things there: chicken and dental floss. I used a self service checkout to avoid anyone else seeing my odd combination of items. Reminds me of when I was bag packing in Sainsbury’s in town when we were fund raising for the Malawi trip. A young couple came through with only two item then also, although I think they were in for a better night than I; a variety pack of Durex condoms and a bottle of champagne. I smiled politely and asked if they’d like a bag for that. They put a decent handful of change in my bucket too.

I had to go in to the bank as well, to deal with my little money problem. Namely the fact that our letting agent had taken the rent out of my account on the 29^th of the month, and my grant would come though until the 1^st, two day later. Unsurprisingly seeing as how I’m a student, I did not have £280 left in my account by this time. Nor do I have an overdraft facility on my account, so the standing order went unpaid. Not a happy result for anyone, other than the bank, who get to charge me £38.00 for the privilege of saying “no, I’m sorry, he doesn’t have that much money to give you.” I carefully considered who I was going to shout at over this farcical event, but in the end everyone was too nice. It genuinely was an unfortunate combination of events that was nobody’s fault and I, unlike my father, do not shout at people for accidents that they had no control over. I guess all’s well that ends well, and I’ve got an overdraft set up now so that I’m covered for those few day between the rent going out and my money coming in, since the same thing is going to happen every month. Incidentally, it was scarily easy to get an overdraft, all it took was 5 minutes and my student card; suddenly I can borrow £1000. I spoke to Aberdein Considine and got my rent paid by card as soon as the money came though too.

I dashed home and microwaved the last of my bolognaise while getting ready to go out. This meant I wasn’t keeping a close eye one it so it got very hot and I burnt my mouth as I ate, I was running late again by this point. At least I didn’t think about what I had to wear, I’ve been planning it for a least 2 weeks. Basically it was every white piece of clothing I own; white shirt, white trousers, white lab coat, white sock, white shoes. (picture to follow… maybe). I was playing the character of Den Chures, an orthodontist, at Natalie’s murder mystery 21^st birthday party. We had a really good time, despite sending me to collect the pizza in full costume. I won’t bore you with the details, but the long and short of it is that I was the murder, but managed to miss the fact this was printed in big bold letters in my handbook, so I didn’t realize until everyone else found out. This made being crafty difficult, although as anyone who’s read Iain Banks’ The Crow Road will know, the perfect murder is the one you don’t remember committing. Everyone had put some effort into their costume, which is always nice to see. Some people looked particularly good in their’s. I was feeling pretty tired by the end of the evening, even though it wasn’t that late by the time I had dropped Mark off and got home myself.