Well I finally started work at the local hospital. I was supposed to be supernumerary, but as usual ended up doing allsorts and muddling through! Worked on a medical ward on first day, quite a lot of elderly but wasn’t too bad, day after was a surgical/orthopeadic ward,  busier with people going to and coming from theatre with tubes everywhere, had a headache when I got home and fell asleep at 10.00. The porter and ward receptionist are both from Liverpool!  I’m thinking that I’m too old and passed it for that kind of work, when you have not done ward work for 12 years also makes it much harder. The staff were all lovely and welcoming, one of the wards is closed for renovations the staff are working on the other wards, so not needing much casual bank staff, which is just as well because the other hospital has contacted me to start on Mon & Tue for induction and Wed am for drug awareness, as many of the drugs used have a different name. This set up seems very professional, they have even given me shifts for the next month! Finally, the district nurses phoned today for me to start in 2 weeks, I’m going to have to time things to perfection, multi tasking!! A few nurses have said I may be better doing hospital at home, bit more acute than district nursing, but I’ll see how the district nursing goes first.

Still having house problems, we gave the landlord 14 days notice to correct all the problems, he hasn’t so we requested an inspector to call to do an assessment. He called today and has given us some advice, we don’t have to find new tenants or pay the rent until new tenants move in like the landlord said, we can go on a month by month contract, ready to move when a nice house becomes available, and we can go to arbitration to request compensation for the past 3 months living in this expensive disaster of a house! Not sure we would win any compensation but it’s worth a try. The landlord came around last night to see when he can do some jobs, to little too late… So looks like we may be moving again.

The weather is still not great, apparently it has been 120 days since the temperature was over 20.0c, which is unheard of. (Isn’t it 120 days since we arrived??) It is still raining but not as much, parts of Victoria have been very badly flooded, with the emergency services rescuing people throughout the night. One lady was saying her brother is a farmer in the North and the creek that runs through his land has been dry for 14 years, now flowing again. There are signs of the temperatures to come, I sat in the back garden on a sunny afternoon and it measured 29.0c – Pheww, had to go and get a hat on.

There are some occasions in Aus that remind you how far behind they are in some aspects of life downunder. Internet shopping is absolutely rubbish, just showing a picture of a catalogue and click on a corner to turn the page, only about 10 pages. They just want you to go into store so you can do a deal, bought a new LED computer monitor and negotiated $70 off the price. Can’t imagine doing that in Currys! Had to take back a digibox as it just kept turning the volume up high randomly, they said they would have to send it off for repair as we had purchased it over 14 days ago. We told them this was not acceptable and they grudgingly exchanged it! How many times have you just taken stuff back months later for an easy exchange or refund in the UK! They even do layby’s still. Ellie has never heard of this, putting things aside for up to 3 months until you can afford to pay for it, but widely practiced here. It is also very strange to see so many shops still selling knitting & sewing stuff, lots of fabric and embroidery also, and they have just started putting Xmas trees and gifts in the big stores! Didn’t think they would be as early here, but it’s probably started in the UK also.

Ellie is now on school holidays for 2 weeks, hope the weather picks up, we keep getting told it will anyday now. Footy finals are on now, then cricket season begins in a few weeks (Oh joy!)