I WAS hoping to have had the Sirdar Jacket completed - ah the best laid plans. Eager to try wrapped stitches in the collar I duly picked up left and right borders and knitted and knitted over four whole days - and lovely it all was too. Then it came to sewing up and could I make the sleeves fit - could I h*ll - so instead of fudging the sleeve tops, which I could quite easily have done in retrospect as no-one would see them under the collar anyway what did I do? Frogged the blooming lot didn't I? I am cross with it at the moment - I seem to be cross with everything at the moment don't I?
As usual work is the culprit as the end of March looms ever nearer. I have been working for the NHS since 1974 and as you can imagine have worked through many many changes. I still can't imagine being anything other than a nurse, but I am wondering at present how much longer the NHS can carry on treating its staff the way it does. The area in which I work has been put out to tender and the tender process has been a long drawn-out affair full of uncertainty and rumour mongering, with those of us at the sharp end always the last to know. What should have been decided by the end of December has become the end of March - a long time not to know who you will be working for and how your job will change. The ostrich approach is no longer working, and as the deadline draws nearer I find myself becoming more and more upset by it all.
Anyway, happier days! Mr A and I have had a new toy - a scanner - and I have been playing with some old photos to bore you with! This is a small group of the 1974 intake of student nurses at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital. I am the one holding the glass! I was 17 when this photo was taken, and the NHS was a very different place!
And another one of me - taken on August 23rd 1981 when I was 25. It was the morning after our wedding and taken in the garden of this hotel where we spent the first night of our honeymoon before making our way to North Devon. Please note the hand knitted jumper ( I still have the pattern! ) and the colour - some things never change!!!!!
Happy days!
12 comments:
oh, joy, thankyou for sharing those photos, you look so happy on your honeymoon - well, why wouldn't you!! ::lol:: and look at you at 17, just a slip of a thing!
I hope the takeover works out for you, you must be feeling so stressed, it's no wonder you are grumpy ;o)
*hugs*
fran x
I love the nursing picture - when nurses really did look like nurses :o)
Now I may have got this wrong, but did you go back there to celebrate your 25th anniversary and have I really been chatting to you that long? *very big smile here*
Yes and no Jacky - yes, we really have been chatting that long ;-), and no, it was the hotel in North Devon we went back to for our 25th - The Chough's Nest. I don't think we could afford this one again!
I hope your work worries are sorted out soon. It's very unsettling having those sort of uncertainties.
I liked seeing your old photos!
I love the old nursing picture. We wore caps too when I started out! I hope it works out at work, I left the profession as I couldn't stand the "stuff" anymore, one time they shut our ward and moved us elsewhere in the space of a weeks notice. I won't ever go back now I have seen the other side of life! Your pink sweater is fab by the way!
Sorry to hear about your Sirdar jacket AND the troubles at work :-( It's almost always worse not knowing isn't it - and like in local government, nothing happens when it should.
But those are lovely pics Joy - I love the honeymoon one - you look very happy - and YAYY for purple handknits!!!
Great photos, and love the handknit sweater!
Sorry that things are so uncertain at work - having been "outsourced" myself some years ago I can well understad how you feel. Also soryr to hear about the jacke woes, hope you can pick it up again at some point.
Your photos are lovely, Joy, and I hope that the work situation sorts itself out soon. I do know what you mean about the NHS, my sister is a nurse too, and I worked in the NHS as a secretary for 9 years until I couldn't take it any more. They really should value their staff more than they appear to.
I am sorry that you are being treated badly, it is indeed an indication of how low it has got! What a pity all the Timeturners are broken!! :rolls eyes: We could do with them in the NHS.
I love that picture, I started just a decade after you and remember the old training day wearing our large starched aprons and super starched collars and belts and hats.
No E-dificile then and MRSA was only just being talked about! We had enough staff to have time to wash our hands properly!!
Good luck with the Jacket! :D
Argh, those starched collars - they used to make me look like I'd been hung by the neck!
I started nursing a decade after you, too - but I was a 'mature' student... We're about the same age (she says, having had to use fingers and toes to work it out).
Thanks for the memories - and hope all works out well for you at work - how frustrating and stressful for you.
I'm sorry to hear of your job worries, the NHS is in such a mess! I love the honeymoon photo and the nursing photo, thank you for sharing them with us :-)
Great photos - I love the colour of your hand knit jumper!!
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