Rixta’s blog

(If what I write here really annoys you, then simply don’t read it!)

February 11^th

This afternoon a terrible hailstorm passed over Maitland. In the six years that we have lived here I haven’t experienced anything like this. Luckily I was home, for the roof in the hall (above my desk) was leaking again. I don’t know if the roof man hasn’t done a 100% job or that 99% is the best you can get with this roof. I fear the latter. We will have to ask him about though, for I want to be sure this won’t happen with ordinary heavy rain. Hailstones of at least 4cm came down and it was really scary. I took a photo of the flowerpots outside when it had stopped. Hard to believe that this can happen in February, but the whole summer the weather has been strange.

(click on the picture to go to the pictures page)

February 10^th

A while ago I had sent an e-mail to Grant’s union to ask if a NUM (Nursing Unit Manager) is allowed to change the rosters at any time in any way. Today I got a response with the exact piece of the law and I was right: this is not allowed at all. The rosters must be published at least two weeks before they start (that often doesn’t happen either) and after that changes can only be made in emergencies. So NUMs are breaking the law all the time (I’m sure that the NUM at Grant’s unit isn’t the only one) and they don’t seem to have the slightest problem with it. Or they do, but are pressured by their bosses to do this and they don’t dare to refuse. I’m a bit at a loss what to do about this, for the nurses don’t want to complain as they want a peaceful environment work in, but the families at home are the victims. And this is only the beginning. FACS days are refused, rosters are changed, so the next thing probably will be that annual leave will be denied and sick days won’t be allowed. They are so desperate that obviously the only way out they see is breaking the law. But breaking the law has never solved any problem. It only creates more problems, but right now nobody wants to see that.

February 10^th

Two days ago I passed a small Asian shop around the corner and they had a sign outside, saying that they were asking for donations of toys for a Philippine orphanage. I knew the lady that owns the shop is from the Philippines, so the link was easy. I asked the woman who was in the shop that moment (it seems to be a bit of a family business) if they would be interested in a bag of teddy bears and she said it would be great. So today I went with a huge bag with bears there. Luckily the same woman was there again, so I didn’t need to explain the story again. She loved the bears and I’m sure they will get a really good new home. She even asked if I would like to get some photos by e-mail and of course I agreed, as that would be really great. And I just keep sewing more and more bears and the next bag will go to the shelter again, unless another good course shows up.

February 5^th

I’m surprised myself to see that the last entry was only five days ago and I have already finished another set of bears. I suppose it’s because this time of the year I don’t have much energy for other things, even though it’s not very hot. And I have made so many bears that that doesn’t require a lot of thinking or concentration.

(click on the picture to go to the toys page)

January 31^st

And here are another three bears. I have such a feeling that I won’t make a lot of these the coming weeks, as February is traditionally the hottest day of the year. And even if it won’t get too hot, then still it will be unpleasantly warm. It doesn’t matter, for I have plenty of bears waiting to go their new little owners.

(click on the picture to go to the toys page)

January 30^th

Today I had an appointment with the pain specialist, who has just opened practice here. I didn't know what to expect, but I was prepared for everything, being it positive of negative. Unfortunately it was the latter. He didn't ask me any questions about my pain whatsoever, but immediately said "pain killers are bad and exercise is the only thing that works." Well, I have ME now for 18 years and I'm glad that I can still get out of bed and do most of the housekeeping. I walk Dribbel 20 minutes in the morning and that's really all exercise I can do. At many days that's already way too much. But when I tried to tell that he didn't listen at all. He had got his standard speech ready and that was it. I had to mention myself the option of a psychologist who can help with visualisation and such. If I hadn't mentioned that he wouldn't have. Graded exercise for people with ME has done an awful lot of bad things and no good things. I know that exercise is good for people with FM, but only if you can do it. GET tells you to get over your limits. In what therapy is getting over your limits considered a good thing? I will try the psychologist, but I don't know if I will have enough energy to make it through even one session. And if I need to stop that because I'm too sick I will be labelled "uncooperative" and who knows what happens after that? If the "specialist" says that painkillers are bad, then I don't know how long my GP is willing to prescribe them.

January 26^th

Years ago, before Facebook and Twitter, there was something on the Internet called “netiquette”, the unwritten rules of decency for the Internet. These included things like “don’t call names” and “stay polite”. Just the things that you wouldn’t do in daily life either to people you talk to face-to-face. Unfortunately the netiquette seems to have completely disappeared, largely because of the two aforementioned names. Since years I was a member of this forum for Dutch people who live in Australia or want to emigrate to Australia. It was kind of fun to post messages and interact with these people from my homeland. Yesterday someone posted a reply to another message, stating that Australia is so fantastic compared to the Netherlands. She lived in Sydney since last October (so less than three months) and was here as a nurse on a sponsor visa (very little hassle to get that one). She sounded like a typical person being in love; in love the whole experience of being a young person living in another country. Nothing wrong with that, but I don’t think anyone in their right mind would take the opinion of a person in love seriously when talking about the subject of their love. I mentioned something like that and this morning I found on that forum a very nasty comment from someone else, accompanied with some name-calling (which I won’t copy here). After some thinking I decided to say something about this, hoping against all odds that there would be at least a few people who would take my side and point out that the rules of the forum state clearly that calling names is not allowed. Well, by the end of today my expectations were confirmed: quite a few reactions and they all pointed to me as the bad one. Obviously nobody has any idea anymore about the difference between a discussion and calling names. This all again thanks to the abovementioned websites, where it seems to be totally normal to call names and even utter threats. I have no intention to lower my standards to make myself popular with people like this, so I decided to leave the forum (without saying anything, for that would be a waste of time). I won’t waste any of my time or energy on this anymore. It becomes a lonely place, where people still habitually stick with laws and don’t consider name-calling a normal way of communication. In 20 years I will be antique with these values. And it’s a name I will carry with pride.

January 25^th

I had told Grant several times recently that the managers were close in crossing the lines lately with rosters and other rights and obligations issues. I was convinced that this year they would get so desperate that they would start crossing those lines, but I hadn’t expected it to be this quickly. Grant asked today for a so-called FACS day coming Monday, to go with me to the pain specialist. This is a perfectly reasonable (and very common) reason for asking for this kind of leave. That’s what it is for: family related issues, which are even quite exactly specified in the law. His request got denied. He could get a late shift instead of morning shift, but that’s it. I told him that I was pretty sure that he has a legal right for a FACS day, but I wasn’t sure, as these things are tricky and so far they had always stayed just within the lines of the law. But it didn’t take me long to find the document on line which states exactly the rights and obligations of both employers and employees. And yes, the employee must make sure that employers get their days where “that is appropriate”. And there are no exceptions mentioned. It’s not “except when the employer can’t find a replacement” or anything like that. It’s time to get in contact with the union, for this is not an exception, nor a mistake, nor the last time it will happen.

January 20^th

And here’s three more bears and with these the big bag is full. I don’t think I can squeeze any more of them in one bag. But I have already bought another bag, so I can happily keep sewing.

(click on the picture to go to the toys page)

January 18^th

During our shopping trip last Saturday one of the things we bought was an electrical cockroach repellent appliance. Grant had read about it and it made sense to us. And as we are really desperate about these nasty bugs in our kitchen we are willing to try almost anything. The thing was a lot more expensive than I had anticipated, but well, it if works it’s worth double the money. As soon as we came home we plugged the thing into the power point and waited. And the same day we thought we saw a change in behaviour of the bugs, but of course it was too soon to say anything about it. This is not something that kills cockroaches instantly like poison does, but it interferes with their system and makes them leave. It also makes them infertile, so that after a while there won’t be any new ones from inside the house. Only the ones that come newly from outside can still cause trouble, but they will also be affected. Now we are five days further and there’s definitely something happening. The cockroaches look very much disoriented and also the number of adult ones seems to decrease. It might take weeks before the number of them is really down to an acceptable level (zero won’t happen), but I’m quite sure now this things works! If we had just known six years ago…

January 16^th

And here’s another photo of three bears. The bag is almost full, but I have decided not to drop it off for a few months. They have plenty of bears and I intend to do the same as last year and spend the winter months doing cross-stitching instead of sewing. So if I have drop off a bag at the end of March and another in winter, then after that I have enough time to sew more bears again. I know it doesn’t really matter and I don’t have any obligation to make bears, but I like to plan things a bit like this.

(click on the picture to go to the toys page)

January 14^th

Today we went shopping in another suburb, so I couldn’t take Speedy. We went to four different shops (nice planned trip), got everything we needed quickly and were home again in just over an hour. But I’m broken. Things like this I just can’t do anymore. I just hope that I will be a bit better again in a few days, for I have things that need to be done. And without any energy I can’t do them. Every time again that this happens is very frustrating.

January 12^th

Though we knew we shouldn’t be worried about Dribbel, we were, as he’s already 13 years old and it’s still a kind of surgery. But this morning all our worries disappeared, when he was 100% his own naughty, demanding self again. While I was still trying to wake up, reading a few e-mails, he barked and demanded a walk. Yep, he’s back to normal again.J

January 11^th

Yesterday Dribbel had an appointment with the vet. His teeth had to be cleaned and it appeared that some were so bad that they had to be pulled. Such dental work of course can only be done under full anaesthetics, so he had to stay there the whole day. The same thing had been done two years ago, so we knew what to expect. Last time he was still half asleep when we picked him up, but yesterday he was already quite alert and sniffing around immediately while we still got some instructions about the pills he needs to take. This morning he was much more awake, but still not really his old self, so I didn’t push him to go for a second walk in the morning. He will be better tomorrow.

January 9^th

This morning I went to the shop to buy another camera and I asked for the cheapest one they had, which indeed happened to be one that is good enough for taking “around the house” photos. The only problem was that the instruction manual was nothing more than a series of pictures. Obviously the rest you need to find out yourself. Luckily that’s not a problem for me and I managed to take a new photo of my bears and download it to my computer. And with that I think I can say that I have figured out the camera. It comes with loads of different options, but “auto” will do just fine. Loads of people spend a lot of money for a camera with loads of special functions and they only use the auto setting. What’s the use then of spending more money?

(click on the photo to go to the toys page)

January 8^th

Yesterday after I had taken the photo of Lizzie I took a photo of another three bears I had made. But when I wanted to download that photo to my computer it didn’t work. I tried a few things and today I tried a few more things to see if I could solve the problem, but I had to come to the conclusion that my camera had really given up. Well, I bought it almost seven years ago second hand, so it’s probably about ten years old. Not bad for a camera.

January 7^th

We can be sure now: Lizzie and Leonard Lizard are indeed a couple. Of course they could be members of a larger family, but at least it’s sure that it’s not just one lizard. This morning I caught them together when they slithered from under my desk into the kitchen. One of them took a turn and I managed to take a photo. They are very fascinating animals and they do a really good job: they eat the dead cockroaches on our kitchen floor! When I spray the kitchen walls at night I often hear the dead cockroaches fall on the floor, but still in the morning the floor is clean of dead bodies. Thanks Lizzie and Leonard!

(click on the photo to go to the pictures page for a larger picture)

January 5^th

I’m mad, very mad. When Grant started working in the hospital here he got his four-weekly rosters and that was it. But the last two years slowly the results of mismanagement have got clear. Most casuals have left and when someone calls in sick the nurses working at that moment are asked to work overtime. As I think double shifts are a very bad thing for both nurses and patients I have told Grant never to accept an overtime shift. It’s not the problem of the nurses or the patients, but of the managers. Also the unit manager has started to ask around all the time if people can please work another shift the next day. Grant used to agree with that, but this completely messes up my week schedule, so I told him never to say yes to that anymore. Let them sort out their own problems. Obviously many people denied the request for a shift change and now they just force them. Grant had a late shift yesterday and was rostered for another late shift today, which I counted on for a variety of reasons. At the end of the afternoon he calls me, saying that he happened to look at the roster and noticed that things had changed and he was supposed to work a morning shift today! He hadn’t even been notified of this, so if he hadn’t looked at the roster he wouldn’t even have known! I told him to get this undone, as he needed to be home this morning, but that as refused by the responsible persons. How are you supposed to make plans, appointments, arrangements when you don’t know what shift you will work tomorrow? And nobody dares to stand up to these arrogant, incompetent, way overpaid managers and tell them that they can forget about last moment roster changes. There must be some kind of law against this, so I contacted Grant’s union. I also searched myself on line and found loads of rules about rostering, but nothing about this. Even if there isn’t a specific law against it, it’s highly unethical to mess up nurses’ family lives. If they would just all refuse to accept it, then it would be over next week. But nobody dares to do anything and why is a mystery to me. It’s the people that dare to stand up for what’s right who make a difference in society, be it a bit of small difference. All those who keep quiet against injustice keep bad systems going.

January 3^rd

Poor Dribbel has had a terrible itch for the last few days and he’s scratching himself into pieces. We have no idea what’s the cause, but can only make some guesses. It could be that during his last bath (a few days ago) we used too much shampoo and didn’t rinse it out well enough. It could also be that the few fleas that walk over him and don’t die off immediately bite him. But you would assume that either would leave marks on his skin and we can’t find anything. Anyway, he had made himself so dirty that we decided that another bath was a good thing, so we put him into the tub and washed him with only a little bit of shampoo and after that we rinsed him thoroughly. While Grant too him for a walk (which dried him really well) I went to the supermarket to get some flea powder as extra treatment. After his walk we put the flea powder on him and then he lied down and slept peacefully without any more scratching. That still doesn’t answer the question what made him itch so much, but we stick with the flea theory and will keep using the powder for as long as necessary. The topical fluid we use should kill off all the fleas and he has never had a problem before, but it’s the only thing we can think of.

January 1^st

A good begin of 2012: I have finished my 150^th bear! It still feels like I have made a lot more of these things, but they are a lot more work than you would think. And that obviously also goes for myself. It must be correct, as I have taken photos of all of them and I have now 50 photos with three bears (or dolls), so that makes 150. Well, I have no intend to stop any time soon, so let’s say: up to number 300! (Or maybe I should better say 200 first).

(click on the picture to go to the toys page)

January 1^st

The night was pretty quiet. There was firework at 9 and 12 PM, but that only lasted a short time. The first time Dribbel was so vast asleep that he didn’t wake up the first minute. We started to worry about him when he started to bark. He’s getting old and tired and the last few days have been warmer, which clearly has a bad influence on him. Nothing you can do about old age.