It's been a busy couple of weeks!

It’s Friday and the weekend is here (thankfully).  The last twelve days have been both busy and tiring, so it’s nice to think that I now have two days where I can relax completely.

After a full and busy week last week, I then spent the weekend course directing an Advanced Life Support course at the hospital where I work, so it was an early start on both Saturday and Sunday.  However, the good news was that Emma was attending the course as one of the helpers (she has passed the course, last year, and so is a “provider”, but isn’t an instructor).

On the Saturday night, we stayed in a hotel in Tunbridge Wells and had a very pleasant faculty meal before working all day on Sunday.  All but one of the candidates passed and even they only need to re-sit the test paper.

Even on Monday I wasn’t able to lie-in (although I was off) as Emma was working and I had to ensure that her son was up for school before getting myself ready for the long journey up to York, where I was heading to teach on a course for the Army on Tuesday.

Having left at lunchtime, I made reasonably good time, but on the way there remembered that I hadn’t packed a towel.  Normally this would not be a problem, but I wasn’t staying in a hotel, having opted to stay in a service mess for the night, an institution that doesn’t normally supply towels.  I therefore had to take a diversion into York, passing the hotel that Emma and I had stayed at just two months ago, visiting various supermarkets before finally finding one.

It was therefore dark by the time I arrived at RAF Linton-on-Ouse and booked into the Officer’s Mess.  The reason that I had chosen to stay here, rather than the barracks in Strensall was that my friend Barry is living in the mess, although sadly he wasn’t there the night that I was saying.

The room was comfortable and like every other transit room in every other Officer’s Mess in the UK, except that the RAF apparently supply towels.  At least, there was one on the towel rail in the bathroom of my room.

After a couple of pints in the bar (£1.83 per pint!) I had an early night as I had to be up early to get to Strensall the following morning.

Having had a good breakfast, I headed out into the thick fog for the 30-minute drive to the Army Medical Services Training Centre where the Immediate Life Support course was taking place.

At the end of the course, I jumped in the car and headed back to Emma’s, the ‘Tom Tom’ telling me that the journey would take just over four hours, meaning that I would arrive at about 9pm.

All was going well until just before Gonerby Moor on the A1 in Lincolnshire.  I had clearly just missed an accident as there was a car in the undergrowth at the side of the road, debris all over the carriageway and a little brown dog haring north on the southbound carriageway.

I stopped the car and approached the vehicle, calling for the emergency services as I did so, finding that I was not first on scene, but second.

The driver was a lady in her fifties who was sitting in the car holding a handkerchief to a very deep gash on her head.  The car was completely destroyed, so my first thought was that she was lucky to only have the one gash.

Although the driver was distressed, it was not because of the accident, but because the little brown dog that I’d seen was hers.  Despite my attempting to get her to remain in the car until she had been seen by the ambulance crew, she refused and attempted several times to get out of the vehicle.  However, the first lady on scene had more luck, keeping the driver in the car.

Eventually the Police and Ambulance arrived, but the driver still refused to be treated and was adamant that she was going to go after her dog.  Even the doctor that had arrived with the HEMS could not get this lady to accept treatment.

However, this all changed after the Paramedic reported that she thought that she could smell alcohol on the driver’s breath.  The driver was breathalysed and found to be over the legal limit for driving, was arrested and therefore forced to accept treatment.

Once I had given my details to the Police, it was back in the car, ‘Tom Tom’ telling me that I wouldn’t arrive until 9.45.  Despite this, I made good time and was actually back at Emma’s earlier, which was just as well, as I had to be up early again on Wednesday.

The reason for the early start was that I had to be on a train at about 7 to enable me to get to Kensington Olympia for an expo entitled Healthcare Efficiency Through Technology.  This was an interesting (in parts) day, but probably more appropriate for those working in healthcare management.

So I have now had two days back at work in the hospital, which meant much more catching up than usual as I hadn’t been there for almost a week.  But that’s all done, and as I said earlier, I now have a weekend of relaxing, which I shall do by watching the Rugby World Cup games that are on.

There’s now only a week or so left of the Pool games before the competition moves onto the knockout stage and so far the almost all of the Home Nations are undefeated, the exception being England, who lost to Wales last weekend.  This means that for England to have any chance of progressing to the knock-out stages, they will have to beat Australia tomorrow evening.  If they lose again, it is likely that it will be Australia and Wales that progress, which will mean that this would be the first time that the host nation of the Rugby World Cup has not progressed to the knock-out stages.

However, before that match is, for me as a Scot, the more important game when Scotland (who’ve won both of their games, against Japan and USA, comfortably, gaining a bonus point for scoring four tries in both of the games) play South Africa (who lost to Japan but beat Samoa). The result of this game is likely to decide the 1^st a 2^nd positions in the group.  In theory, the winner should get the easier game in the quarter final, but as the opponents are likely to be either Australia or Wales, I don’t think that it will be that easy!