Merry Christmas Everybody!

or

Yay, I've found my Christmas spirit

This time next week, it'll be all over and we'll be in hangover season hell.  I may have been a bit bah humbug in last week's post, but it kick-started me into getting things done.  Now the cards are sent, the, admittedly pathetic, decorations are up and presents are bought.  I didn't do a Santa list this year.  I decided to go for the surprise and sulk because I didn't get anything I like, option.  Well I suppose it's better than making a list and then sulking because although you got what you wanted, it's pink or has some equally horrendous design flaw.

The guitar & cello get a santa hat!

Now it's all about working out party logistics.  There's so many people I want to catch up with, and so few days to do so.  Coupled with this is the fact that I'm spending daylight hours feeling decidedly groggy and the week passes in a blurry haze.  I think I might give myself a break and stay in tonight!

There's still two days of work to go, but they get messy at this time of year.  Most people have switched off and so it's very difficult to get anything constructive done.  Students toggle between freaking out about the amount of assignments they have to get done and belting out Christmas songs.

Tomorrow night is our Christmas party.  A few years ago, we used to go all out and have dinner and possibly a cabaret or casino night.  No-one has the money for that anymore.  The recession has seen to that.  This year, as last, we are going to a city-centre hostelry for pints and some finger food.  It could go either way, but I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll have a good night.  I might even get the glad rags out, although it's hard to go all-out for a night in a pub.

We'll be in work on Friday of course.  For me Christmas begins with the hungover meeting following our Christmas party.  It's cruel of me I suppose.  I don't seem to suffer as badly from hangovers as my colleagues.  I get a sadistic pleasure in watching them sweat, groan and wince in pain before we are finally released to do last minute Christmas shopping.  We do kris kindle in work.  I have my present all wrapped up, in the box and ready to go.  I think it's a nice way to end, with everyone who participates getting presents.

Less than 2 weeks!

or

Help, I've nothing done!

Well it's December and it's past time to enter into the Christmas spirit.  This was brought home to me in work today where we had a Christmas jumper day.  I didn't participate, I didn't think it was appropriate.  Bah humbug and all that!  But hey, I am participating in the Kris Kindle and picked my 'victim' today.  It's always a nice way to break up for the Christmas, with a (hopefully) nice present.  I have some ideas of what to get, but it all depends on whether or not I can get to the shops.

I should be prepared.  The weekend before last, I helped out a Christmas market.  Not quite as nice as the Christmas market in Frankfurt I went to with the oul pair last year, but still it was a sign.  And tomorrow, I'm playing a Christmas concert, my first one on the cello.  Christmas is always a busy time of Christmas concerts and singing carols.  (I got myself roped into an impromptu choir at the Christmas market).

So in between concerts and silliness at work, there's still a lot to be done.  Make a present list, try to figure out what people want, go to the shops.  Don't forget the wrapping paper "5 for 50!" as they used say on Moore Street.  I'm sure it's gone up now.  I'm very bad at the cards.  Some years I decide that I'm not going to send any.  Others I enthusiastically buy enough to send to the whole country.  Either way, I'm not too good at actually sending them.  Some years I have them all written, but somehow they never make it into the post.  I did buy some already this year (damn charities and their emotional blackmail) but they could well remain in the bag until next year.

Then there's the decorations.  There are some outside lights up in my area already but not too many.  It's probably down to the continuing recession.  Those I have seen tend, on the whole, to be quite tasteful.  Thankfully the tackiness of yester-year seems to have died with the tiger.  No harm! I haven't put up any.  It seems like far too much effort.  Someone called me a grinch today.  They might not have been too far out.

One thing I usually look forward to at Christmas is the endless array of parties and revellery that one is obliged to partake in.  Now, I have been to a lot of parties in the last couple of months.  It's been averaging at about one a week, but unfortunately these have all been 40th birthday parties.  I say unfortunately because mine is just around the corner.  There hasn't been as much drinking at Christmas in the last couple of years, as a number of my friends have started pushing out babies and are more interested in having an early night than a bit of craic.  However, I still have a few dates in my diary and on the bright side, I'll end up with more cash in my wallet at the end of it!

Whatever happens, come Christmas day, I'll be with the whole family, opening presents, and stuffing myself with turkey, ham, stuffing, gravy, roasted potatoes and Christmas pudding.  My favourite dinner of the year.  I bags a leg!  Must remember to wear an elasticated waist...

Another week, another hospital

or

A lot of effort to go to for a day off work

This time it's the time of Cappagh where I had a ganz osteotomy in 2007.  I've been coming here once a year ever since for a check-up.  Each time it's the same.  You sign in at the registration desk and then make your way down to the x-ray department.  It's a considerable walk for someone with mobility isssues which is rather bizarre as this is the National Orthopedic Hospital and a fair number of cripples grace its doors daily.

After the x-ray department which is, one must say, extremely efficient, you make the long treck back to the registration area.  This year, there are some new notices in place.  Graphs helpfully inform us that the cost of missed appointments, calculated at €80 each, came to €50,080 in 2011 and in the current year up to September, came to €42,320.  That's 626 missed appointments in 2011 and 529 in the first three quarters of 2012.  Who are these people who miss appointments?  It takes so long to get one!

However, I can understand how it could happen.  For instance, I was sick all Sunday night with what I diagnosed as food poisening, due to having consumed some seriously dodgy ham.  Not, Winter Vomiting Bug as an idiot nurse tried to convince me.  Anyway, if my appointment had been Monday, I'd have had to cancel at the last minute.  Also, if I'd had an appointment last Spring I may have had to cancel as I spent much ofthat time hanging out in Tallaght Hospital.

There's a huge difference between the two institutions.  Cappagh is an older hospital, more specialised, more compact.  While you still prepare yourself for a long wait, there's not the same mill of people hanging around and there's nobody sick, as such.  Tallaght is characterised by trolleys zipping around and shuffling patients in pyjamas sneaking out to have a forbidden smoke.

This time, in Cappagh, I'm in the consulting room at 13:50, a mere 25 minutes after my appointment time, although I arrived 15 minutes early and there's no sign of a doctor until 14:30.  Today I get a whole 5 minutes of his time, as I have to update them on my health issues.  I'm fine for now.  Come back again next year.  

This hour and a half of hanging around is a significant improvement on Tallaght.  My record from appointment time to seeing a doctor there is almost four hours.  Four hours where you daren't get a coffee and plea to people to listen out for your name if you have to use the toilet facilities, for fear you'll miss your turn.

Cappagh is a much calmer proposition.  The out-patients is separated from the wards and there's less wandering about of patients as many are there for hip or knee procedures.  The food is also much better in Cappagh.  By much better, I mean that it's actually edible.  In Tallaght, I had to coerce friends and family to smuggle me in wittles.

Tallaght is chaotic, with inedible food, lots of hustle and bustle and files and records regularly go missing.  However a good proportion of the nursing (although by no means all) and medical staff are conscientious and caring and doing their best.  (The surgical staff, as with many hospitals are mainly arrogant and more interested in their technical expertise than your health).  Unfortunately, despite many good reports from patients who've been there, I found the opposite to be true in Cappagh.  There were a lot of agency staff while I was there who just didn't seem to care or think it was their job to look after you.

Given the choice between being fairly well, having good food and being in a calm environment, to being very ill, unable to eat the 'food' served, immersed in chaos, but with staff who at least give the impression of caring, I have to say, having experienced both, I'd go for illness, starvation and chaos in Tallaght anytime.