New Job, New Car and New Flat

Soooo, it’s been a while since i’ve posted a blog. A lot has happened since July 21st!

I started my 1st full time hospital dr post since december 2005. My 1st job is the ludicrously piss easy Psychiatry job, which has an on call rota of no weekends, no nights and nothing past 5pm, but the pay is low as a result.

The 1st day consisted of registration and intro lectures. The 2nd day, my consultant was away, so i checked out the new hospital and bumped into some mates, which brings me to the new flat statement…

On Thursday evening, I found out from my sister, that the long awaited exchange of contracts had finally occurred and the day of completion and the move was to be Friday. i hurriedly arranged annual leave for Friday, checked out a grotty (unlikely) flat for leamington, and then drove home to Essex. Got home by 8pm, and promptly cleaned out my car and sold it for 200 squid. It is probably worth more, but i’ve really battered it over the years. I have now ‘inherited’ my sisters car, as she does not want it anymore—it has low mileage, A/C, power steering and is less battered! Cool!

On Friday the removal men turned up bright and early and started the ‘Big Move Out’ from the house and Essex. After approx. 1.5 hours the house was cleared and we found it from our solicitor that the 1st half of the money transfer had been completed. There was some sadness leaving our house, as there are so many memories there! 20 minutes after we arrived in N1, we had our keys and the ‘Big Move In’ to Islington had started. I helped the removal men (two Poles from Woolwich), and was left knackered and aching by the end, as well as cut and bruised. Lugging boxes up to a 2nd floor flat on a muggy day was fucking hard!

Since moving in, we have managed to make the flat more homely, though there are many boxes yet to unpack!

A slight diversion to the weekend of moving came in the form of the free music festival in Regent’s Park called ‘FruitStock’. I saw Norman Jay and Arrested Development live too—v cool and free!

I am now back in Leamington, crashing at my mates house, after a quick 1.5 hour drive from London to Leamington. Wow! and i did that without touching the M25!

I’ll try and update my blog more regularly, especially regarding the highs and lows of Psychiatry.

Less than a month to go

After many months of unemployment and claiming dole, i am finally going to be starting work as a full time doctor from august 2nd.

my rotation is 1 year long and my jobs will be:

• Adult Psychiatry: August to December 2006
• Acute Medicine: December 2006 to April 2007
• GP: April to August 2007

It appears that most of my hospital jobs are at one hospital.

I’m looking forward to getting back to work and earning some decent dosh again, plus life will be more social, though a lot of my weekends will disappear, but that i am aware of that! I miss working as a doctor!

HOT! HOt! hot! and other stuff going on…

Jeez! It’s steaming at the moment! The weather is amazing at the moment.

So what have i been doing since my last entry? More than usual, but not working, despite job offers all over the freaking country.

OK, first thing first—if i am getting all these job offers, why oh why am i not taking them and earning dosh and being a doctor?! Well…despite not having worked that much since December, and only doing two HO on-call weekends, i have not done any proper SHO on-calls and thus feel unconfident to be a lone medical SHO on-call at night or on a weekend in a unknown hospital. Therefore, i feel i am being responsible by turning down these jobs. I’ve only got 4 weeks till i start my 1st full time job in 8 months!

2 weeks back, i went to visit my mate John, who has recently moved from Chester to Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury is a small town, approximately 1 hour west from birmingham. The journey time up to Shrewsbury from Essex was bloody long and i was roasting in my mobile oven aka the car. For the last 100 miles i used country roads as the motorways were pissing me off!

The weekend consisted of visiting the sites of Shrewsbury which is apparently an old medieval town and drinking quite a bit, going to cheesy late night bars, meeting up with a friend whom i hadn’t seen in nearly 2 years, drinking some more and watching the England match in a bar with 10 screens, where unfortunately a whole contingent of noisy lesbians continually pissed us off by constantly getting and walking.

This weekend gone, I went to Harrogate and visited my friends to celebrate their engagement and have a BBQ. I also met up with someone who i’ve been chatting online with—i won’t go into to much detail yet, but will do soon. Harrogate is a wealthy town like Leamington Spa—lots of nice sports cars! I also visited Hull too.

Today, i caught up on some sleep, despite it being v hot and sweaty. Went to IKEA and bought some furniture. Looked at laptops in PC World, for my sister, as her desktop is coming to the end of it s computer life. Started re-watching ‘This Life’ DVD too which i got for free from a friend who didn’t want it—cool!

That’s all for now! Double bill of ‘Lost’ tonight!