Thoughts for Friday – 10th July 2015

I left you on a cliff-hanger last weekend, hinting that my week in London was an eventful one and believe me, it was.

I’d had a decent enough weekend, including a raucous day at college on the previous Friday. Fresh from my Fire Theory training, I attended my college course, not really sure to expect but nervous about the fact that I would have to deliver a fifteen minute microteaching session.

A microteaching session is basically a condensed version of a normal teaching session, whereby timing is all important. If you overrun in a microteaching session, you lose more marks than you would for losing your train of thought or even just blatantly giving a wrong answer to a question.

After speaking to my college tutor, I decided to do a microteaching session on CPR because, as you know, everyone likes a good pump and a blow…

My microteaching session went very well and I also got to take part in the sessions delivered by my college buddies. The great thing was that we all came from different industries and so I got to try my hand at different activities and skills. I learned to play Malteser football, had my eyebrows threaded, attempted to make a braided bracelet and most exciting of all, I got to dress up as a fireman (woman).

Our college group consisted on nine women and one man, who just happened to be a fit and hunky fireman, so you can understand our excitement when he told us that we’d get to feel the weight of his equipment and touch his helmet…

It’s fair to say that his equipment was heavier than I expected, but we had a lot of fun dressing up in all the gear and looked like a female version of the Village People by the time we’d finished.

I was feeling good at the start of the week and dare I say it, looking forward to a week in London. That was until I received a call at 8.30am on the Monday to inform me that there was an issue with my accommodation for the coming week. It turns out that the hotel I’d been booked into was far too expensive and so the room was cancelled, leaving me with nowhere to stay.

Cue a massive panicked scramble and finally a hotel was found that wasn’t at an extortionate nightly rate. I had a look on Google maps and assumed that North Acton (where I was staying) wasn’t that far from Canning Town (the venue I was delivering in). I assumed that everything would be fine.

I caught the train from my local station and arrived at London Waterloo just after 4pm and, due to the amount of luggage I was carrying, I caught a taxi outside the station and asked the driver to take me to my hotel in North Acton. I had assumed that it wouldn’t be more than about £25 for the taxi fare, and although the driver was a lovely guy and we had a great chat, I was alarmed to find out that the fare was the best part of £40.

The hotel I was staying in was situated literally outside the Tube station and I managed to find a pub walking distance so that I could at least get a decent meal (I was in a hotel that had no restaurant). I slept terribly that first night, probably due to the fact that I had no idea what to expect with my first time delivering in London.

It took an hour each way to get to and from my hotel to the training venue and loaded down with bags and battling the rush hour commute both in the mornings and evenings, I was starting to get a little frazzled by it all.

I did arrive at the venue in decent time on the first day and had hoped for a good group and a good week, however, you know that when your first joke of the day falls flat that it’s going to be a long week…

I had a mixed group of people, some of whom were obsessed with the sound of their own voice and prolonged the sessions and then complained at how long the day was. Then there was the pair of learners who turned up over an hour late and whom I allowed to stay and then complained that the venue was too far away for them. That’s an issue for their manager, not the poor trainer who has absolutely no say in where sessions are held, so why leave it on MY feedback form?!

People on the London Underground are some of the most ignorant and rude people you’ve ever met. Even though I was loaded down with bags, looked in pain (because I was) and uncomfortable, not one person got up and offered me their seat and so I stood for an hour each day, every day with one exception when a group of students from Texas boarded the Tube train. Even though I only spent a few minutes with them, they were the nicest bunch of kids and made sure that everyone made room for me to get off at my stop.

Leave it to foreigners to be the politest people on the Underground…

Somehow I got through the first few days, trudging back and forth from one side of London to the other. I enjoyed a lovely meal on the Wednesday night and felt relieved that that I wouldn’t have to battle the Underground the next day, knowing that I had pre-booked and pre-paid a minicab to get me from the hotel to the venue.

Just one more session to get through and then I could go home and put a trying week behind me. I was over the worst, wasn’t I?

Thoughts for Friday – 3rd July 2015

I rather left you all hanging at the end of last week’s Thoughts post, didn’t I?

How mean of me to tease you with my wares and then snatch them away at the last moment, but hey, I have to give you some sort of reason to come back each week…

After a trying week ‘up north’ (let’s be fair, anything north of Watford is considered to be northern England to me), I was able to enjoy a relaxing weekend at home, catching up with friends and family who had hoped their efforts the week previously would mean that they wouldn’t have to see me for a fortnight or so.

Batteries charged, makeup applied like war paint, I strode toward the new week like Naomi Campbell striking her assistant with a mobile phone. I had a target in my sights, I took aim and I was going to knock them dead in my local area with my delivery skills.

That had been my intention although I have to admit that it didn’t quite turn out that way.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a good bit of banter with my delegates, but there is having a bit of fun and then there is just blatantly taking the piss. I tried to remain good natured throughout the first day, while wanting to wring some of the necks of a few choice delegates. Had I not kept my temper in check, I fear that Kate Loveton would once again be roped into helping me bury some bodies.

I had much the same group on the Tuesday and I’m not sure whether it was the free sweets and candies laid out on the tables or the fact that I had a small selection of children in adults clothing, but a section of the group were determined to push my buttons.

One particular delegate kept interrupting me and I had to resort to bitchslapping her (metaphorically speaking, my manager frowns upon actually hitting people during training sessions) and all but shaming her in front of the rest of the group. She seemed to have taken on board that I wouldn’t take any more of her crap and was relatively quiet for the rest of the day.

I have to admit that by lunchtime some of the delegates were just being plain rude by returning from breaks when they felt like it and so I continued the session without them and refused to help them catch up. When I pointed out that our finishing time was dependant on people coming back from breaks on time, lo and behold, everyone arrived back from the afternoon break bang on time!

It’s hard work to remain calm and composed when some delegates seem to have no other reason for attending your sessions other than to get a rise out of you. All the while, you stand there taking it, smiling and not letting everyone see that you could quite happily garrotte the annoying shit who causes as much pain, misery and discomfort as a haemorrhoid on Christmas Day.

This is why after-session debriefs are always needed. These debriefs are the perfect opportunity to really let rip about some of the awful delegates you’ve had to put up with that week. My poor other half (and yes, I kept that very quiet!) listened intently as I stamped my feet and shouted obscenities about certain delegates and made disparaging remarks about everything from their hairstyles, dress sense, to which strange planet they came from and how quickly I could reintroduce them into the Earth’s orbit and far, far away from another of my training sessions.

After a couple of tough days what I really needed was a three and a half hour drive to Birmingham, battling some of the most idiotic and dangerous drivers that I have seen for some time. What was it about mid-afternoon on a Wednesday? Is it a special time of the week where you’re allowed to leave your common sense and driving skills at home?

Somehow I made it to my hotel in Birmingham, shaking slightly but still relatively in one piece. This week had been sent to try me, I knew that much for sure, but how much more would I be expected to take?

God must have answered my prayers, for who should be on the reception desk but Jermaine, the hunk of burning love that my colleague and I fought over the last time we stayed at the hotel! I think Jermaine was being coy with me when he asked me if I’d stayed before and I answered him by saying that it was my third visit in six weeks.

“You just can’t stay away, can you?” he responded.

Oh, Jermaine, you sexy hunk. If only you knew…

I hadn’t just randomly driven up to Birmingham to see Jermaine, I was actually there for a specific reason which was to attend a Fire Theory ‘Train the Trainer’ course. I had imagined being trained by a fit and hunky fireman while I fanaticised about the size of his hose, but it actually turned out to be a retired, middle-aged fireman who sat and talked us through the theory of fire, how it starts etc.

Our trainer asked us what we knew about fire, to which I piped up, “Uh…it’s hot?” which definitely raised a few sniggers from my colleagues but probably didn’t win me any points with Mr ‘I Used to be a Fireman’ who looked at me like I was actually as stupid as I look.

I’d had a 300 mile round trip to be trained in the theory of fire, a lot of which I knew anyway, but at least I got a free lunch (sandwiches and crisps) and an opportunity to flirt with Jermaine again. Plus, I got to see my colleagues who joined the team at roughly the same time I did. I think they’ve realised by now that I have the biggest potty mouth out of all of us.

If I thought the week I’d just endured was challenging, nothing compared to the following week in London. Stay tuned to find out what happened next…

Thoughts for Friday – 26th June 2015

A relatively short break from the weekly treadmill of commuting and staying away from home during the week followed the wonderful stay that I experienced at the B&B outside of Brighton. Not counting attending college, I had a four-day weekend to enjoy myself before heading off on my travels again.

My four days off consisted of Skyping for several hours with the wonderful Kate Loveton, catching up with friends, and showing my face to various family members in the hopes that they hadn’t forgotten me entirely. I know, I know… my face is far too ugly to forget!

As seems to be the way with me, I felt a headache developing a day or two before I was due to travel halfway up the country for a couple of team meetings. Feeling a little green around the gills on the Tuesday morning, I drove over 140 miles in roughly 3 hours, which was pretty good when you consider that I made a pit stop a couple of times along the way (a quick rearrangement of the letters in the words ‘pit’ and ‘stop’ will give you a fair idea of why I needed to pull into a services a couple of times…)

Just as I pulled up at the hotel, I received a call from my manager who I had been scheduled to meet at 2pm, telling me that she was seriously behind and wouldn’t be able to meet me until the early evening. I had no problem with the meeting being put back (these things happen, after all) but I was slightly miffed that the hotel wouldn’t let me check in until 2pm that afternoon.

So I had 90 minutes to burn before I could lay my weary (and pounding) head down for a few hours. I drove to the nearest shopping centre in the hopes that some retail therapy would take my mind off the throbbing of my head, yet even my lust for new clothing could not douse the pain in my head.

It would have been nice if my curry had some chicken in it…

I picked up a pot of chicken tikka masala and rice in the local supermarket (or grocery store for my American pals!) and slouched back to my car to eat it all the while feeling pretty sorry for myself. To add insult to injury, upon eating the said curry and rice, I was alarmed to find that there were no traces of chicken to be found. The supermarket, in all of their nefarious evilness, had stiffed me on the chicken but still left the flavour of it inside the curry. That’s just cruel if you ask me…

I eventually checked in at the hotel, took a couple of strong painkillers and then had a nap for a couple of hours before a knock at my door woke me. I couldn’t recall ordering room service, although when in the middle of a severe headache, I barely remember anything at all. Alas, it was not a cold pint of beer and steak and fries on a plate, it was just the receptionist informing me that my manager had arrived and was waiting for me down in the bar where, quite frankly, EVERY single meeting should be held.

It started with coffee, progressed to soft carbonated drinks, and finished with an evening meal. After five and a half hours, my meeting with my manager concluded and the only reason we stopped was due to the bar calling ‘time’ and closing for the night. It would be fair to say that my manager and I like to chat a lot and several times went off-topic and discussed most worldly topics that were in no way shape or form related to our job roles.

Perhaps it was fortuitous that I had a nap on the Tuesday afternoon as the next couple of days consisted of back to back meetings. On Wednesday we were all asked the same question about why our best friend is actually our best friend. My immediate answer was that Kate Loveton is my best friend because she knows where I buried all the bodies… This raised a few titters and some alarmed facial expressions from a couple of colleagues who don’t know me that well yet and, after that comment, probably weren’t too keen on getting to know me any better either.

Call it team building (I just call it an excuse for a good night out), my colleagues and I went to the local leisure complex and had a couple of games of bowling. I’m blaming my lack of accuracy on the fact that I was stone-cold sober while playing, although my manager did remark that my technique was pretty good, it was just my aim that was crap.

It would be fair to say that these are the biggest balls I’ve seen for some time…

I have to thank one of my male colleagues for taking one for the team and coming last so that I didn’t have to, besides he was the same colleague who booked me into that hideous pub outside of Brighton a couple of months ago and he owed me one anyway.

There were some sore heads and bruised egos at the meeting the next day and I think we were all pretty glad when it concluded so that we could all begin our long journeys back home. I made good time until I hit the M25 and got stuck on the damn thing for nearly two hours. It was also a warm and humid day, and so sitting in a massive traffic jam was not exactly an enjoyable experience.

I got home several miserable hours later.

As much as I enjoy delivering sessions, it was nice to have a week away from giving your everything to a group of learners, day after day, some of who don’t always appreciate the time and effort we put in to our sessions. I was able to meet up with colleagues, catch up on the latest gossip, look at a picture of someone’s prawn (yes, really) and get my ass kicked at ten pin bowling. Best of all, the first couple of days of the following week would see me commuting from home each day. I would be back home in my local area, always something to look forward to. I would receive a hero’s welcome, surely?

You’ll just have to wait until next week to find out!

Thoughts for Friday – 19th June 2015

My brief stay in Nottingham behind me, I was looking forward to spending time somewhere a little closer to home the following week. Unfortunately, due to the horrific design of the A27 (see my previous Thoughts post), I had no choice but to book overnight accommodation for the duration of my stay.

As you already know, the last time I stayed just outside Brighton, my colleague booked us into the most awful establishment and I had decided that I would NOT be staying there again. That meant that I had to find somewhere else to hang my hat for the best part of the working week.

Most of the chain hotels were either booked up or way outside my budget (my company only allows me to spend a certain amount on overnight accommodation and any infringement on this results in having ones fingers broken and various objects inserted in various places – joke!) The truth is that I work for a charity and if I can save some money by keeping to or coming under my budget limit, I am happy to do so, knowing that the money saved will be spent on meaningful projects that will benefit people with a learning disability.

One of my favourite sites to use when looking for accommodation is Booking.com (and no they didn’t pay me to say that). The site allows you to compare prices of overnight accommodation easily and also offers discounts for registered users who use their site regularly to book their stays, which again means that I can get value for money for the budget I have.

I found a small B&B listed not far from where I would be delivering that week and found that not only was it a stone’s throw from where I would be working, it also had free Wi-Fi (I never book accommodation that doesn’t include Wi-Fi or breakfast) and even its own gym and indoor pool. It sounded great and so I booked my stay and didn’t think any more about it until I began my journey on the Monday afternoon.

Call it paranoia, but I began having visions of the B&B resembling something out of Fawlty Towers, with highly-strung owners and bizarre guests. The further I got to my destination, the more fear crept into me, crawling through my veins and placing pressure on my bladder and bowels. Would I survive the week, or would I get eaten alive or buried under the decking in the back yard? Would I ever be heard of again?

It must have been the cheese sandwich I had the night before that had caused me to become convinced that staying in a B&B in the middle of nowhere (it was down a long country lane and off the beaten track) would see the demise of Heather B Costa before she ever made it to Mrs Loveton’s home in the good old US of A.

I couldn’t have been more wrong about the B&B and I was delighted to find that, even though it was in the middle of nowhere, the surrounding acres of countryside were beautiful and a sight to behold. From my window I could see wild rabbits running free, deer frolicking across the fields and all manner of wild birds flitting from tree to tree.

The room was pretty good too, with a clean and spacious en-suite bathroom that had hot running water (my last visit to this area of England didn’t) and reliable and speedy Wi-Fi. The only downside was that I had a single bed, and so I had to try very hard (and successfully I may add) to make sure that I didn’t roll off and land on the floor during the night.

The bed, though small, was comfortable and I managed to get a good night’s sleep on each of the three nights that I stayed there and I didn’t once fall out and land on my ass.

Best of all was the freshly-prepared breakfast banquet that I sat down to each morning, although I must confess to being slightly overawed by the 60-piece matching china dining set that adorned the massive dining table. I had a number of pieces of cutlery of differing sizes and I am almost certain that I showed myself to be the cretin that I am by using the wrong spoon or knife at the wrong time.

By completing a menu form the night before, breakfasts were made to order and I enjoyed a bowl of porridge and blueberries each morning, followed by toast, scrambled eggs and baked beans, as well as my very own pot of filter coffee and orange juice. The eggs for breakfast were from the B&B’s very own hens and were collected each morning at 6 am from their hutch. Talk about fresh food!

As for the sessions themselves, they went pretty well and I had a good group of learners. It just so happened that it was also a pretty warm and humid week and that I was delivering my sessions in a room on the top floor of a building and with windows on all sides, which meant by the end of each session I was dripping with sweat and almost ready to fall asleep standing up.

The delegates who had been with me for all three sessions expressed their disappointment that I would not be delivering their last three sessions, and I found it quite sweet that they’d taken to me so well. It’s always nice to hear that your delegates appreciate the sessions and how much effort and energy is put into each one.

After three long days, I packed up my equipment and my Annie dolls, all of whom got a good pumping and blowing on the last day, and returned home to the comfort of my own bed. It was good to be back by Thursday evening, but the one thing that I missed more than anything was the fantastic breakfasts at the B&B, even if I did use the wrong cutlery…

Thoughts for Friday – 12th June 2015

My resuscitation dolls arrived while I was mid-migraine and so I didn’t really do anything with them until the unbearable banging in my head had abated somewhat. I had only been expecting three dolls and so therefore I was surprised to find another doll stuffed inside one of the bags.

My first job was to thoroughly sanitise said dolls, after all, you never know who’s had their lips round them before I got them…

I gave all four of my Annie dolls a good wiping down and then pumped their chest several times for good measure. Lord knows what my downstairs neighbour thought of the sound of springs repeatedly being put under pressure.

Each of the dolls has a removable face (they are clipped on at the ears), presumably this is so you can remove them, give them a quick spin in the washing machine and then hang them out in your back yard to dry so that you can scare the life out of your unsuspecting neighbours.

I’ll give it a whirl and let you know…

It just so happens that one of my dolls has an issue with its face clipping on to one of its ears and after an hour or so of battling with it, I decided to give up on the latex facelift and left it as it was. I have christened the doll Vincent, for obvious reasons…

It just so happens that my cousin’s young daughter, Molly, is working hard getting her Brownie badges and one of them is for First Aid. I took Vincent, along with assorted bandages and slings, and gave Molly her very own one-to-one First Aid course. I have to say that, for an eight year old, she did incredibly well to remember everything, though her first attempt at chest compressions looked more like she was using Vincent as a trampoline, rather than trying to resuscitate him.

Molly, and her parents, were appreciative of the time I spent teaching her the basics of First Aid, but the truth was that I was glad to have some practice before heading to Nottingham for what would be my very first solo First Aid session. I wouldn’t have felt quite so nervous had I been shadowing my colleagues repeatedly during the last couple of months, but as luck (or not) would have it, I’d only shadowed once during that time.

So it was with some trepidation that I packed my bags (and my dolls) and headed to Nottingham in my car. The venue was 200 miles away from where I live and so I drove up the day before and checked myself into the hotel (which was also the venue that my session would be held at). I left just after midday, expecting to miss most of the traffic. It turns out that every man and his dog must have been coming back/going on their holidays as the traffic on the M25 by Heathrow and the M1 by Luton Airport were horrendous.

It took me nearly six hours to arrive in Nottingham and by that time I was in desperate need of a drink, something to eat, and a wee – but not necessarily in that order.

I didn’t sleep much that night either, the alcoholic drinks that I’d consumed only served to keep me awake as I went back and forth to the bathroom for most of the night. I woke the next morning feeling tired and nervous and I was quite honestly crapping myself about what was to come.

The first of my delegates began turning up when I was mid-way through trying to tie a sling for my left arm with only my right and I must have looked like a right idiot chasing the end of a triangular bandage around my back like a dog chasing its own tail.

I was hoping that all of my delegates would be new to social and care and First Aid so that I could potentially wing bits of the course that I wasn’t overly familiar with, but it turns out that two of them had already had a great deal of experience in working with paramedics and the Fire service. Rather than letting this bother me, I actually got one of them to show the group how to apply a sling, thus getting out of doing it myself. Who says a trainer has to do all the teaching in the session?

It’s always difficult to take on a group that one of your colleagues has already delivered to as they have certain expectations of what you’ll be like, but I have to say my Nottingham group were good fun, if a little rowdy for my liking.

The group seemed to enjoy my renditions of ‘Staying Alive’, ‘Nellie the Elephant’ and ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ as I showed the group how to perform chest compressions at the correct speed, although it’s fair to say that I won’t be starring on Broadway any time soon.

Considering that I was flying by the seat of my pants for the entirety of the day, the session went better than I was expecting it too and I received some good feedback from my learners. I think they particularly enjoyed my anecdote about how the resuscitation dolls got their face and I also remembered that I’d agreed to share it with my readers too, so here goes:

The face that is used for Resusci Annie dolls is taken from a mould of a young woman who had been found drowned in the Seine in the late 1880’s who was known as ‘L’Inconnue de la Seine’ or ‘ The unknown woman of the Seine’. Apparently, the pathologist in the Paris morgue who performed the autopsy was so taken with her beauty that he took a mould of it (otherwise known as a death mask) and it is the very same mould used by Peter Safar and Asmund Laerdal who created the Resusci Annie doll in 1958.

I tend to only share this nugget of information after my delegates have performed the CPR routine well enough to pass the course as it tends to freak them out a bit otherwise and I suppose it brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘French kiss’…

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to disinfect an unknown French woman’s face…

Thoughts for Friday – 5th June 2015

After a week of feeling as if Birmingham was my new home, I took advantage of delivering sessions that were much closer to where I live, and for a week or so I was able to sleep in my own bed.

Oh the excitement!

As much as I enjoy staying in various cities and hotels, the lure of my own creature comforts is too strong to deny for long. The only downside of not staying overnight in a hotel is that I have to make my own bed each morning, as well as doing all the cooking and the washing up…What was it that I was saying about enjoying being back at home?

The venue I delivered my sessions in was only a 25-mile journey that, on a good day, would take me no more than 40 minutes to get to. Things went relatively smoothly the first day, I made it to the venue in good time to set up and feel relaxed in my surroundings before any of the delegates arrived.

The second day saw things get much worse.

I had left early due to a well-known traffic-snarl that gets exceptionally busy at rush hour and had almost snuck past it when everything ground to a halt. After twenty minutes of going almost nowhere, I soon began to realise that this was more than just a ‘weight of traffic’ situation. It took me nearly an hour to go just over two miles due to a two-car accident in the fast lane that had blocked two of the lanes of the motorway. Once I got past the scene of the accident, I think I might have gone slightly faster than necessary on the rest of my journey!

I had hoped to arrive before any of the delegates and, apart from one very keen person (who must have loved my teaching style), I managed to get there before the group as a whole started arriving, although I’d cut it much closer than I would have liked.

You expected me to find the most phallic-shaped crystal, right?

I’ll admit that I also felt quite nervous on that second day, due to a loss of confidence the day before, and so being delayed by an hour was hardly an ideal start to the day. It just so happened that I had been chatting to one of my delegates about my new role and during our discussion she noted that my self-confidence had taken a knock. This particular delegate was a keen study of holistic therapies and healing crystals and offered to lend me her Citrine crystal which is known to be linked to feelings of positivity and confidence.

I held the crystal in my hand in the sessions after lunch and I have to admit that my confidence and positivity had certainly gone up a notch or two. The group also seemed to respond very well and there was lots of laughter and good fun throughout the afternoon. It seems as if the healing crystal worked and I was so impressed by it that I’ve ordered a set of crystals for myself so that I can carry them with me when I deliver my sessions.

After finishing that week on a high, I got hit with the mother of all migraines. I’ve suffered with these debilitating headaches for years now, usually I have at least a month or two in between attacks and so this one took me by surprise. I began feeling slightly unwell on the Wednesday and had a feeling that it could be a migraine, so I took some strong painkillers and got an early night hoping that I could sleep it off before it turned into something bigger.

It didn’t work.

I woke up the next morning feeling worse than when I’d gone to bed, and for the following four days I felt awful, spending most of my time sleeping or just lying very still and trying not to vomit everywhere. No matter how much I slept, the migraine stuck to me like doggie doo-doo on a shoe.

I had hoped to get a fair bit accomplished on my five-day break from work, but four of those days were spent feeling pretty damn sorry for myself. Even when the migraine lifted, I was stuck with what is usually termed a ‘migraine hangover’, whereby I felt pretty worn out and generally quite sluggish. After days of not eating much, I also found myself with an odd craving for anything sugary, which apparently is not uncommon for migraine sufferers.

Another strange thing about my migraines is that after they and the ‘hangover’ have lifted, I tend to feel quite euphoric and full of energy, which is the exact opposite of how I feel when I’m in the middle of an attack. I tend to get cravings for foods that I know are high in sugar, fat and/or calories and I guess that much of this is to do with the fact that I’ve probably lost a few pounds over the course of the attack by eating next to nothing and, now that I can stomach it, my body wants to refuel.

There is another, more unfortunate side effect of my migraine attacks, related to bowel movements and high-strength painkillers, but I shall spare you the details and just say that the two don’t mix.

I’m pleased to say that I am migraine-free for the time being and will soon be writing about my return to Nottingham, or as I call it: ‘The Search for Robin Hood Part 2’. I also have a delightful (depending on how squeamish you are) little tale of resuscitation dolls and how they got their face, but that is a story for another week.

Stay tuned as the Trials of a Traveling Trainer continue…

Thoughts for Friday – 29th May 2015

I left last week’s Thoughts post on a bit of a cliff-hanger didn’t I?

I know, that was terribly mean of me, but I needed to give you at least some small reason to come back this week!

I believe I left the story at the beginning of what was meant to be a three-day training course that would see me become a qualified First Aid instructor. There we were, my two colleagues and I, patiently waiting in a hotel conference room, wondering why we had gotten to the venue before our trainer (it’s always considered bad etiquette if your learners turn up before you do). We sat and waited.

And waited.

Finally, there was a knock on the door and a very apologetic member of the hotel staff informed us that our trainer would not be turning up today. At first we worried that they’d had an accident on the way to the venue and were concerned for his safety. Our concern for his well-being was reduced quite dramatically when we learned that he was somewhere in Essex and had no idea that he was meant to be delivering a session to us in Birmingham.

After many apologetic phone calls later, my colleagues and I were told to sit tight and make use of the conference room, even though our instructor would not arrive until the following day. Left to our own devices, we could have got up to all sorts of things, but like the good employees we are, we actually spent the day working on course presentations (and filling our boots at the lunch buffet which had already been paid for).

Sadly, our manager had vetoed my suggestion of visiting Cadbury World which was only a few miles away from the training venue. She seemed to think that we were far too well-paid to spend a work day getting our jollies at Britain’s most famous chocolate factory. I used my innate charm and yet still our manager held firm. I even offered to buy her a mound of chocolate but it was no use, she wasn’t budging.

So what do three people who don’t know each other very well do when placed in a conference suite and left to their own devices? Well, we all work in social care and so it wasn’t very long until the conversation turned toward vomit, bowel movements and that kind of thing. No high-end conversations for us, no-siree…

I have to admit to being slightly annoyed when I was informed that my colleagues and I would all have to return to Birmingham on Sunday night to complete our course. We were told that the trainer definitely would turn up on Thursday and Friday but that we would have to come back the following week to complete the last day.

This doesn’t sound too bad until you factor in that it would see me driving 450 miles in three days, which, even for me, is a little excessive. There wasn’t much I could do about it anyway and so I consoled myself with the fact that my mileage expenses would look pretty rosy after all that traveling.

After a week of staying in the same hotel, I was running the risk of becoming part of the furniture and greeting many of the staff on a first name basis. However, there was one member of the hotel staff that both myself and one of my colleagues had our eye on: a gorgeous hunk of a man called Jermaine. This guy was an Adonis and on our return to the hotel on Sunday, I bet my colleague that Jermaine would remember me. Sensing a challenge, my colleague aimed to do everything he could to get Jermaine to notice him on our last night at the hotel. This may or may not have included both of us gawping at his perfectly-formed derriere as he leant over the bar on the Thursday night…

I ended up the victor when we reconvened on Sunday night as I gleefully told my colleague that Jermaine had personally shown me to my room.

“How in the ‘ell did ya swing tha?” my colleague said in his deep Yorkshire accent.

I would have loved to say that it was by natural beauty and feminine charms, but it was actually a case of my room key not working. Still, I made the most of the opportunity to rub my colleague’s nose in it a little….

To be honest, I think I might have scared Jermaine off with the conversation we had while I was checking in. Jermaine asked me if I would mind an adjoining room and I replied by saying that I would only agree if the door remained locked and no one could get into my room. Jermaine assured me that this was the case and I was happy with that until a thought crossed my mind…

“Actually,” I said. “It depends on who is in the next room. If they’re cute then they can come right in!”

I wiggled my eyebrows salaciously at Jermaine and it was probably at this point that I lost my chance with him.

Still, I will be back at the very same hotel next month and have another chance at getting Jermaine’s number. I just hope he hasn’t gone running scared and quit…

Thoughts for Friday – 22nd May 2015

You may have noticed that I was conspicuous by my absence last week when my usual Thoughts for Friday post failed to appear. It was a rather Thought-less Friday, so to speak.

The past couple of weeks have been my most hectic yet this year. At the beginning of the month I embarked on my first solo sessions in Oxford and the realisation hit me like a ton of bricks that I had no one sitting in the corner of the room ready to jump in if my sessions turned into a crisis.

Oxford is a fair distance from where I live and so I decided to travel up the night before (the A34 has never been my friend at the best of times). I made it to my hotel in good time but was rather dismayed to find that they had no restaurant to speak of (this was a Holiday Inn) and was told that I could order in a takeaway if I wanted. I then began to worry that they would point me in the direction of the local McDonalds if I asked about their breakfast provisions, imagining an Egg McMuffin as my first meal of the day…

How I imagined the fireman would look like…

On my first night in Oxford I managed to find a Frankie and Benny’s restaurant only a short walk from my hotel (which was situated next door to a football stadium, coincidently). Imagine my excitement when I saw a fire engine screaming toward the stadium with lights and sirens blaring!

Alas, my fervour dampened when I realised that it was only a bin on fire and required the attention of one ageing and rather unfit fireman. Shelving my disappointment, I spent that night (and another two besides) making my way through the rather limited food choices on the F&B menu.

The sessions in Oxford went quite well and I was relieved when my first group contained only seven people. The first day didn’t start that well when I drove to the course venue and entered a steep driveway expecting to find a car park but finding nothing. I couldn’t drive straight through and so I had to reverse back down a narrow driveway with brick walls either side and onto a busy main road.

I’d made it to the venue in good time and managed to set up well before any of my delegates arrived. I had assumed that the day would be a good one. It wasn’t to be though, due to my laptop and speakers seemingly unwilling to speak to each other (it turns out that it was my fault for not plugging something in, but I didn’t tell my delegates that). I sorted the sound issue during the lunch break  only to find that I’d then lost my computer’s feed to the projector!

It seems as if these things were sent to try me and I think I made the most of what could have been quite a disastrous situation. It only occurred to me later that it could have been a higher power conspiring against me…

The course venue was actually a church that rented out particular areas of their property and I had been given the main church area itself in which to conduct my sessions. Strange things seemed to happen throughout the three days I was there; doors opened of their own accord, signs that I’d stuck onto the walls fell down and the lights flickered on and off. I then began to wrack my mind to think of any times that I might have taken the good Lord’s name in vain but came up with none. Perhaps it was a training colleague of mine trying to send a message that I was being watched…

After my sessions were over for the week I had just enough time to fit in my college course and then I made my way up to Birmingham for what was due to be a six-day stay. I’ve always taken the train any time I’ve needed to go to Birmingham and so driving up there was something new to me. I imagined driving in the city centre would be much like trying to drive in inner-city London.

Turns out that I wasn’t wrong on that front.

I had booked a hotel on the outskirts of Birmingham city centre and assumed that the ten mile journey to my course venue would only take me 20-30 minutes. What I hadn’t factored in was that I would have to drive straight through the city centre itself. I’ve driven some confusing and complicated routes at times, but Birmingham is in a league of its own when it comes to disappearing and reappearing lanes coming out of nowhere. It took between 60-90 minutes each way to get from one side to the other and by the time I’d made it to my destination each day I was just about ready to have kittens (I also would have taken vodka, gin, brandy etc.)

Luckily, I only needed to make the hairy cross-city journey for two days as the rest of my time in Birmingham was due to be spent attending my own First Aid training with two of my colleagues. I hadn’t even met one of my colleagues before our meeting in Birmingham and I was delighted to find out that the colleague in question was from Barnsley and had a deep Yorkshire accent.

I am a proud Southerner and my colleague a proud Northerner, so you can imagine the good-natured ribbing we gave each other about our accents and outlooks on life. I think I spent more time mimicking his accent than he did mine though and I’m not sure if he was impressed or just amused at my attempts to ape his accent.

So there we all were, sitting in a hotel primed and ready to be taught everything we needed to know in order to deliver our own First Aid courses. Surely nothing could go wrong?

TO BE CONTINUED…

Cover reveal – Death Before Daylight by Shannon A Thompson

 I am once again honoured to take part in the cover reveal for Shannon and her awesome Timely Death Trilogy. I could talk the hind legs off a donkey about how highly I rate Shannon as an author, but I’ll let her do the talking as she does it so much more eloquently than I, click here if you’d like to read my review of the book.

Letter from author, Shannon A. Thompson

It’s here! It’s here! The final cover of The Timely Death Trilogy has finally been released. A special thank you goes out to Clean Teen Publishing and this lovely Member of the Dark who is helping share this message today. Minutes Before Sunset, book 1 of The Timely Death Trilogy, re-releases on July 28 – with an all new interior and exterior – and both are beautiful. Seconds Before Sunrise follows on August 25, and Death Before Daylight (the only novel of the trilogy to never see the shelves before) is finally getting it’s day . . . hehehe . . . Well, it’s releasing September 15. Even more exciting? You can win prizes throughout all of these events and more by becoming a Member of the Dark . . . or a Member of the Light. Check out the details below! I look forward to speaking with you!

Shannon A. Thompson (a.k.a. SAT)

http://shannonathompson.com

Synopsis:

Two eternities. One ending.

“Harmony would only come with destruction.”

The moment Eric and Jessica are reunited, they are torn apart. After the appearance of a new breed of shades and lights, the powers shift for the worse, and all three descendants find themselves face-to-face in the Light realm. When Darthon is in control, the last thing everyone expects is to finally hear the truth.

While Jessica learns the reason of her creation, Darthon’s identity is exposed to Eric—and only Eric—and Eric can no longer defend himself. With the eternities of the Light and the Dark resting on Jessica’s shoulders, she must choose who she will be—a light or a shade.

In the end, someone must die, and the end is near.

Dark Activities:

Become a Member of the Dark (or Light) by emailing ShannonAThompson@aol.com. Your email will never be given out, and you are not required to do anything, but you will win more prizes the more you participate.

 Win a paperback of Minutes Before Sunset via Goodreads! https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/131705-minutes-before-sunset

Pre-order Minutes Before Sunset: http://www.amazon.com/Minutes-Before-Sunset-Timely-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00WTRV9FC/ref=reader_auth_dp

 Stay Updated via The Timely Death Trilogy FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Timely-Death-Trilogy/227663240691565

Visit the Extras Page:

http://shannonathompson.com/novels/a-timely-death-trilogy/extras/

Pin your favorite photos from The Timely Death Trilogy Pinterest board:

https://www.pinterest.com/AuthorShannonT/the-timely-death-trilogy/

But most of all . . .

Stay Dark,

~SAT

http://shannonathompson.com

Thoughts for Friday – 8th May 2015

My new job role has seen me travel extensively across the country for the last few weeks. My final destination for April was a town called Burgess Hill, not too far from Brighton, a place which is a lot of fun when the weather is warm and the sun is shining and less so when it’s cold, windy, and raining.

I left early on the Monday and had assumed that the journey would take perhaps 90 minutes by car. I found that I’d sorely underestimated how long it would take to arrive at my destination and this was primarily to do with the fact that the route I would need to take had at least 25 roundabouts to contend with. Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against roundabouts (or circular traffic islands, if you like) per se, I just have an issue when 20-odd of the sodding things are within a five-mile radius of each other. Surely the Ancient Romans had the right idea by building roads in a straight line, thus negating the need for wibbly-wobbly, faffy bits of road with hairpin bends and dozens of roundabouts?

Can you tell that these hideous concrete constructions irk me a little?

I arrived at my destination at least an hour later than I had expected and questioned the sanity of my colleague who had booked the accommodation for the both of us when my eyes fell on what looked like a dilapidated old public house (for my American readers: think ‘bar’). It turns out that my first impression was pretty accurate when I finally checked in and accessed my room.

This is how I woke up each morning after a freezing night of sleep

Firstly, the lock on my door was unpredictable at best and only locked when it wanted to, thus sometimes locking me in and/or out of my room. I then found out that the bathroom window did not fully close (allowing the cold air to enter my room), the TV didn’t work, my gas central heating only tended to operate when I was not in my room, there was no hot water in the shower, and that I had a wall-sized mirror in my room that wasn’t actually fixed to any of the walls. I then had visions of the thing falling on me in the middle of the night and this wouldn’t have seemed so bad had the staff at the pub actually bothered to enter my room on a daily basis to do simple housekeeping tasks such as make the bed and remove used cups and saucers etc. At first I assumed that room service was not part of the package, until my colleague gleefully told me that his room had been attended to every single day…

On the second night we drove into Brighton to marvel at its beach (which was full of stones and not sand) and its famous pier. Lets go and have a look around, we thought, until we realised that the pier was closing and that if we entered we’d likely be locked in for the night. Deciding against being locked in on a freezing cold pier, we then went in search of somewhere to eat. The fact that my colleague suggested a ‘gentleman’s’ club by accident shall forever remain our secret…

In the end we found a quaint little Italian restaurant and ordered pizzas all round (as you do). The only issue was that we were sat on the table closest to the window which meant that people walking past could see us eating our food. This worked both ways though as we could sit and watch the alarming amount of inebriated people stumble towards the pier and laugh when they tripped and/or fell. The drunk to sober ratio of people in Brighton must have been somewhere close to 5:1 that night and I wonder if this is a usual occurrence for a Tuesday night or just because my colleague and I were in town.

If I thought things at our overnight accommodation couldn’t get any worse, then I was very much mistaken when I ordered an evening meal from their ‘specials’ menu. Well, if serving lukewarm-cold food is a speciality, they really hit the mark with what they presented to me that night. I felt awkward and embarrassed when I had to ask for it to be taken away. The staff apologised profusely but still saw fit to charge me for the meal itself when I settled my bill that night.

I won’t publicly shame the establishment in which I stayed, but it is fair to say that, next time I’m delivering sessions in the local vicinity, I won’t be staying there again…