I was listening to Real Radio FM for about 10 minutes on the way home from work, it’s the Real Late Night Phone-In with Dave Brooks and they talk about all sorts of interesting stuff and it’s a good listen, it’s also funny in places, especially when a guy named Roger gets on the line. I remember him phoning up a few years ago when Adrian Allan was doing the latenight phone-in, the things he said was hilarious. I bought the CD of Adrian Allen’s Top Man tapes a long while ago and one time Adrian was talking to Roger and he said: “Now Roger, I want you do to something for me, repeat these words… Scum sucking pond life” and it was hilarious listening to Rodger getting all tongue tied and then Rodger said, “Oh whatever, it is quite irrelevant really” Adrian was laughing so hard he had to go to a commerical.

Anyway…

…it starts off the show with a topic, and people tend to phone in throughout the show to give their opinions on it. Today, they were talking about the Eurovision Song Contest - we all know the votes are politically based (I mean, seriously, our song was bad but it wasn’t that bad, compared to some of the other entrants!). The fact that only two countries voted for us and gave us a grand total of 14 points and placing us last is somewhat embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as the oh so famous ‘nil point’ we achieved in 2003, the first ‘nil point’ of any country for 5 years.

Up until 1998 we done very well in the results getting into the top 10, and one year, actually came first, but since then our scores have majorly plummeted… what does that tell us about the UK? Is it really a case of extremely poor choice of song, or, is it that other countries simply don’t like us?

I am seriously considering trying therapy. A few friends have mentioned it to me in the past and I have been thinking about it but each time I just let the fear take over and do nothing more but I know I need to break through that fear and do something about it, otherwise the intense feelings I go through will end up being the death of me.

In this blog I rarely talk about how I’m feeling. I know, I should, a few people who read this blog have told me I should make it a lot more personal and I am trying.

There are certain issues that I am trying to get past but whatever I do, they’re always there and I hope they’ll just go away but truth is, it’s not happening. I feel a lot of bad feeling towards myself, self hate, to the extreme. It goes back to my childhood, family life, and people who hurt me, the pain doesn’t go away. Most recently my step-mum’s death, well, I say recently, but that was in 2006, it still feels like yesterday and the horrible memories of the last few weeks of her life will remain with me forever. The guilt eats me up. Whenever people say they feel guilty over what they could have done before a loved one died I always say, “Feeling guilty isn’t going to solve anything”, and I know that’s true but I just can’t get it into my thick head. Feels like I deserve the pain. It feels like I should be suffering, because if I acted sooner than I did, my step-mum might still be here today and that feeling rips me apart.

My little baby Sam died in Jan this year too. It’s just so hard. He may have been a dog but he was like my best friend and losing my step-mum, then my dog, plus something happened in December which really messed me up, which I don’t feel like talking about. It’s just too much.

I’m sorry. I’m whining, but I needed to vent somewhere. I’m sick of unloading my crap onto my friends, I feel like a nuscence all the time even tho they say I’m not. It feels like therapy is the best way to go. I’ll type up more later.

Weeeeell… I’ve been busy. Work etc and the other day I went to an Emergency Responders (Red Cross) meeting on Wednesday and it was interesting. It was the first ER meeting I’ve been to so I met some people who I hadn’t met before which was nerve wreaking in itself. Was contemplating for a while before hand “shall I go or not?” then at 6:45pm I decided to go so put on my shoes and jumped in the car and off I went to be there for 7pm.

It was interesting, and in parts, funny. Talking about the last emergency call out to the caravan park on the outskirts of the city I live in (which is only 10 mins or so from where I live), it was when we had very bad floods. The duty manager was just about to go to bed because she had a raging headache then her phone goes and it was the council asking her to gather up some people to assist with evacuating, providing shelter, food & drink and first aid etc. She phones around and gets the ER team together, two of the guys bought 400 bottles of water from up the valleys and some wise person took the tape off around the bottles - going around the first roundabout and they heard a loud bang, 400 bottles of water rolling around like skittles in the back of the van. hehe

We were then shown a DVD that was sent out to authorities such as police, fire, councils etc telling them about what we can do to assist in crisis. Then we were talking about CRB checks, new ID cards we’re meant to get and upcoming training courses. I’m going on a PES course (Providing Emotional Support) and Introduction to Major Incidents and Functioning in Centres.

I went to the first aid meet the day before and I’m going on a duty officer training course too. And I have to update my defib certificate, while we’re at it I’m updating all my first aid. It’s meant to be refreshed every 3 years (apart from defib which is meant to be updated yearly) but practice and updating when we can keeps it fresh in the head. And ohh…

While I remember. Hehe. I drove the battlebus!!! Well, the landrover ambulance. I drove it over the racecourse when I was providing first aid this last weekend. It was so fun!! The woman infront was hanging on for dear life but I was a good driver until we went over two bumps I didn’t see. The front of the landrover was literally flying through the air. The guy in the back who let me drive was in hysterics, the woman at the front who sat with me (also a first aider) said I gave her a hysterectomy. Our duty officer was handing out information cards to go in our first aid bags to give to casualties. The woman who sat in the front with me joked: “I’ll have one for shock and Peter should have one for head injuries”. Bwhaha.

Ha, yes, it just gets better.

Yesterday I was talking to a tenant and her friend who was visiting, in her flat. This tenant had a bad chest infection and her friend said, “we are waiting for a coughing fit”. I *totally* misinterpreted what she said and I thought she meant “coffin fit” It didn’t click until about 2 hours afterwards and I was pretty embarrassed. My brain has a lot to answer for.

I saw this sign in the window of Peacocks (a large clothing chain in the UK), I stood there staring at it for a few minutes trying to get my head around it. So, you’re telling me, when you’re in the fitting rooms trying on garments “you may experience loud noise, vibrations and sudden movements?” *blinks*

It then finally occurred to me that the sign was referring to the referbishment happening in the shopping centre. It’s being changed totally and it’s starting to take shape. Peacocks is one of the few stores in the shopping centre that has decided to stay open when the referbishment is happening.

Stop laughing at me. Refit = Re-fit. As it, fitting clothes. Gah, made sense to me at the time anyway, felt like a right numpty.

Well, not exactly one liners, little gags, I guess - posted on a reader blog on the South Wales Argus website (linky):

1. Phone answering machine message - “…If you want to buy marijuana, press the hash key…”

2. A bloke walks into the psychiatrist wearing only Clingfilm for shorts. The shrink says, “Well, I can clearly see you’re nuts.”

3. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn’t find any.

4. I went to the butchers the other day and I bet him 50 quid that he couldn’t reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, “No, the steaks are too high.”

5. My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli. A strong currant pulled him in.

6. A man came round in hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, “Doctor, doctor, I can’t feel my legs!” The doctor replied,”I know you can’t, I’ve cut your arms off”.

7. I went to a seafood disco last week…and pulled a mussle.

8. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly. They lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once and for all that you can’t have your kayak and heat it.

9. Our ice cream man was found lying on the floor of his van covered with hundreds and thousands. Police say that he topped himself.

10. Man goes to the doctor, with a strawberry growing out of his head. Doc says “I’ll give you some cream to put on it.”

To view the other twelve click the link below to read full entry.

(more…)

My top 10 favourite songs at the moment are…

1. Nightmare (Sinister Strings Mix) - Brainbug
2. I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing - Areosmith
3. I Walk Beside You - Dream Theater
4. Children - Robert Miles
5. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
6. Shatter - Feeder
7. Us Against The World - Westlife
8. Who Are You - The Who
9. 4am Forever - Lostprophets
10. Tears From The Moon - Conjure One

Ok for anyone who cares where I’ve been past few days - I’ve been covering Red Cross duties, and we all spent a night in a B&B a few miles away from the events (22 miles outside Hereford), and we went out for a meal Saturday night. When I say we - 12 of us - sharing 2 ambulances and two cars.

Erm, sooooo much happened. If I went into details, it would be a long ass entry. So…

Our first aid tent (owned by the racecourse) almost caught fire when we were using gas trying to heat up a kettle. The flames were huge, two first aiders were in the tent. One said to the other, “quick, get me a blanket out of the ambulance!” .. reply: “What, are you cold?” In the end she took off her jacket and threw it on the fire to stop the flames. The jacket is one of these yellow ones with florescent silver on it, cost £70 a jacket but we considered the cost of a new tent covering damages would have been more.

Stewards at the fence I was covering were so friendly they called each other every name under the sun. I wonder who here would take being called a ‘twat’ as a compliment? Not me.

Dogs. Dogs everywhere. Small ones, large ones. Cute ones. All cute!! One came to the first aid tent and I asked if we could keep her as a mascot - the owner said no.

We left for the B&B, following the leader and we got lost. We were singing over the radios, taking the mickey as we hadn’t a clue where we were going. We got there, I was sharing with two other women volunteers.

Went for a meal, table booked for 8pm. Lovely pub just a few streets away, and we were all put around the same table. Jokes were shared, stories and gossip. The wait between each course was stupid, at just gone 11pm we had finished our dessert.

Headed back to B&B and three of us went to our room. As soon as M’s head fell to the pillow she was out like a light. H and I was chatting for a while then she drifted off to sleep (I wasn’t that boring, was I? )

Woke up at 6am, because M is an early bird. We all showered (separately hahaha). Had a chat, joked about M’s vibrating hairbrush then went down for a full english breakfast.

Went out for a walk, did a bit of shopping. All chatted to each other, then changed into our uniform and headed out to the racecourse (after we spent 20 mins looking for our door key, only for it to be in someones pockets all along! ). Follow the leader. Had been raining overnight, so racecourse was so muddy. I was in the back of one ambulance. When you’re on the racecourse in muddy conditions you need to keep your rev’s up and don’t stop. What did we do? Stopped. Had no choice - either that or go into the back of a 4×4 that cut infront of us. So we had to be pulled out by a tractor. The other ambulance and two cars were there infront of us, over the radio came the message, “(call sign) to all stations, those of you who have got cameras pull them out now”. How embarrassing. We were pulled all the way there. (image - right)

We then moved the ambulance, and it got stuck again. This time, Mark grabbed the lead and was pulling it (yes, by his teeth ). (image - left)

One horse put down, another we thought was dead on the fence but 10 mins later he was pulled off and was fine, apparently he was winded. Another horse treated badly by his jockey because he jumped the wrong fence (gave the poor horse a whipping). One casualty who had to be taken to hospital and we ended up leaving over an hour later than we should have.

We make a good team, I’m going for the courses to get into ambulance crew. I’m signing up for the resus support and management training course so I can use oxygen and entonox etc then a few other courses. Woot. Today I learnt how to use a stretcher, and experience what it’s like to actually be on the stretcher and being put into the ambulance - it’s good to understand how it feels for the casualties, so you can appreciate how daunting it can actually be.

Gawd, a lot more happened, but I’m tired. I have a group shot of us all - watch out for it on Facebook if you have me on there.

So yes - long weekend. This morning I never felt so tired in my life. Am shattered today.

Can’t believe I haven’t submitted an entry about this before - check out http://www.friendscircle.co.uk

It’s an international friendship community. =)