Talisman

The home I am in at the moment is a residential care home, which is supported by district nurses. The residents are a mixture of both fee paying and social services - I am not sure about the new one, but it is also care rather than nursing. The cuts in social care funding are though are a huge part of the problem, which have placed a big strain on resources. I am not sure what the solution is - there are no easy answers.

I have completed another couple of countries since I last posted on here: Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones for Papua New Guinea and A Place Where the Sea Remembers by Sandra Benitez for El Salvador

a meat free breakfast from Sainsbury's. Very nice it was too.

I have some really good news - I have got another job ! It's in another care home, this time run by a much smaller chain, slightly further from home, but it pays 40p an hour more, which takes it to just 15p an hour less than the living wage that I deserve. The best thing of all is that everything there is brand spanking new, as the home has only been open since January. No expense has been spared and it looks more like a 5 star hotel than a care home. They seem a lovely, very forward thinking company who really care about the welfare of their staff, and I am really optimistic about working there. It was a friend from my current work who told me about the home, having seen an advert in her local paper, and I am pleased to say that she has a job there too, although for the moment only at the weekends. She has an ongoing grievance with the company we both currently work for to do with health and safety and the union feel they have a better chance of winning her case if for the moment she stays there, so she is going to carry on here during the week and work at the new place at the weekends. I am pleased about that as it means that we will still be working there - she has been a great support to me during the short and somewhat painful time I have spent here. The last straw for me came the day that they hauled me into the office and threatened me with the sack for telling a resident off for hoarding toilet rolls. This was just the latest in a long line of incidents, which included them telling me what underwear I could and could not wear among other things. Having left my previous job for this sort of thing, I knew that I had to get out of here before I started feeling as bad as I did there - after 9 months rather than 3 1/2 years. Imo this home is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, and I don't intend to stick around to see that happen. With a bit of luck, I will be out of here by Christmas.

I don't give a monkeys if caffeine is bad for you, I'm going to have another coffee anyway

Neither have I Never ever have I gone rock climbing

Lerwick, Shetland

Sigur Ros - Kveikur

It's probably me doing something wrong, but I can't get that photo thing to work.

Coran is processing the pictures for me as I write - I will try and put some thumbnails on here if I can work out how to, otherwise I will post them on Facebook.

I don't give a monkeys if people think I am mad for going to Iceland in October

I got back from Iceland last night after 5 amazing and exhilarating days. I arrived on Monday afternoon in temperatures of around 4 degrees and the temperature dropped very rapidly after that. I woke up on Tuesday then to find a blanket of snow - the first this year and set up downtown to explore and take stacks of pictures of the semi frozen lake and so on. The Northern Lights tour I had booked was cancelled for Monday night, but I went on the Tuesday instead and had the most fantastic displays imaginable that went on for over 2 hours. I really could not have hoped for better. They took us way out into the countryside down on the south coast where it was completely pitch black. I and several other coach loads of people were busy putting up tripods and so on and drinking copious amounts of coffee to keep warm. It is a strange thing but the lights although amazing are not nearly so dramatic as they appear when you see the videos and so on on Youtube. I think what you have to remember is that these are done like a time lapse with very long exposures (I did mine for almost a minute), whereas when you are watching them live it is much faster, more like a flickering in the sky. You cannot always see the different colours with the naked eye, which is why a tripod is so essential, for it is only with those exposures that you can capture all those colours and all the swirls. From what I have seen of my own images I did good. On Wednesday it was of course the other big event - the lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower. I travelled over to Videy, the island on which the Tower is located on the free bus/ferry along with what seemed like half of Reykjavik. The ceremony was fairly low key but spectacular none the less with the somewhat predictable playing of much of John Lennon's repertoire. At one point a late flight from Reykjavik flew right through the beams which was pretty spectacular. Once again I got plenty of pictures of the crowds and of course the Tower itself, plus Yoko Ono doing her speech. While I was there I also went on the obligatory Golden Circle and Blue Lagoon tours, and made 2 visits to the famous Reykjavik swimming pool - it is strange to think that this time yesterday I was soaking in one of the hot pools in temperatures of 40 degrees. Now though I am home and I have to start planning the next visit which will probably be in the summer. I have 2 tubs of Skyr and a big bottle of Brennivin to keep the memories alive.

I have already written one, which I published around 7 years ago now. It is still available in Kindle format for anyone who wants to check it out and wants an interesting and perhaps challenging read. If though I was to write another one it would probably be the made up stories about the soft pigs that I collect.

Dakar, Senegal

It's actually a care home that I work in gardengirl. I don't give a monkeys if I don't come back from Iceland !

Sounds about right. The Icelanders have a saying "if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute".

Xian, China

I am all packed and ready for the off - this time tomorrow I will be waiting at Gatwick. I have also reconfirmed the Northern Lights tour for tomorrow. Not sure about the weather forecast - the aurora forecast is good, but it depends on the level of cloud cover. The weather out there is though constantly changing, so they always get it wrong. All you can do is keep your fingers crossed. One thing I do know is that it will be cold - the forecast for today is between -2 and +4 degrees - it might actually snow on Tuesday. I will be grateful then for all that winter walking gear. On that note, I am off to the viewpoint to catch some sun while I am still here and do some and

The Olympic Opening Ceremony CD - I had forgotten how good this was. Listening to it now it is almost as if I was sitting on the settee watching it all again for the first time.

One thing I have thought about is a transfer - I suspect that with a new Manager in a different home things might be a lot better. Some of the people that I work with have come from other homes run by the same company and they say that it not like that there, so it has to be worth a try. There are 2 others I could try which are a lot nearer home so maybe a transfer could be the answer. I think I am going to ask about that when I come back from Iceland and see what they say. I will of course continue to look elsewhere as well. The good news is though that it looks as if I may be able to get over to Videy (a small island off the coast of Reykjavik) for the lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower on Wednesday. This is a marble tower which was built by Yoko Ono some years ago as a memorial to her husband. The words Imagine Peace are inscribed on the memorial in various languages and underneath the tower are a series of light prisms which are lit up each year on October 9th (John's birthday) and kept lit until his death date 2 months later, lighting up the Reykjavik skyline. Yoko normally travels to Iceland for the activation ceremony which of course coincides with my visit, and there are free busses and ferries to get you there. The Aurora forecast is also good for most of the week, so this is shaping up to be a very memorable trip.

Vladivostok, Russia

Thank you Pontalba - you are absolutely right. I know now of course that I should have joined a union a year ago and let them deal with my former boss, but I was so ground down by it all that at that point I could not see the wood for the trees. That job affected me far more than I realised. That is why I know that I cannot let this happen again, and I have to do something to prevent that. If they won't listen (and believe you me I have tried), then that means that I have to go. I am not the only one there to feel this, as almost everyone does to some degree, including most of the senior carers. The domestic staff as always are the least supported and the ones that appear to bear the brunt of this nastiness, which is so unnecessary. At least one of my colleagues has an ongoing grievance with them to do with health and safety - she tells me they took 6 whole months to reply to a letter from the union rep who is helping her, which kind of sums the place up. When she finally did her meeting with them that same union rep tore them to shreds - I would love to have been a fly on the wall. Today though is the first of my 9 days off - it might be raining outside, but there is sunshine in my heart.

I have no more work now for 9 whole days and I cannot say in all honesty than I am the least bit sorry. I have been thinking of moving on for a while, and the events of last week have only hastened to confirm that decision. Last Tuesday I was hauled into the office for what I consider to be a minor misdemeanour and threatened with all sorts of dire consequences - basically that if what they said I had done (and others there have done far worse) escalated to a "safeguarding" issue I might lose my job and never work in social care again. I was naturally really upset about this, but when I challenged them on this the following day, they turned round and said that it was only said to scare me. This to me is bullying and intimidation. I phoned the union on that one, but since I have been here less than 2 years there is little they said I can do other than start writing things down. This is just the latest in a long line of events which started a mere 3 days after I started this job when they told me off for carrying a bottle of water around the home and dusting the same area twice (no, I am not making this up). I chose to ignore them as I left my last job because of this sort of thing and did not want to admit that it was happening again. I cannot though continue to do this, as I know if I leave it, I will get to the same point where I was 12 months ago - without the resources to do anything about it. I have the weekend off, and then I am off to Iceland on Monday for five days. I will have a lot to think about while I am gone.

we fail the health and safety inspection

If no one appreciates my sense of humour