Spring Has Sprung

Sunday. 6.15 a.m. I don't think Alfie was in the least bit interested in going out this morning. He was in his bed next to the television in the lounge and behind the trolley on which my Canon printer sits. I had to pick him up to take him out. No sound, no barking or anything. We did an Oldbrook Green circuit and then returned to the flat.

Bank Holiday Monday. 6.15 a.m. It's another warm and mild morning here in Milton Keynes. I think I must put on my electric fan to cool down the flat. Yet another circuit of Oldbrook Green with Alfie. I am shocked by the amount of litter which is all over the grass around the place. The rubbish bins are overflowing. It is really unpleasant.

Tuesday. 5.10 a.m. I had the electric fan on all yesterday. I also had the lounge and bathroom windows open and the flat is now a good deal cooler.

I have had a refund for the gimbal, which I returned to Amazon. I was surprised at how quickly the refund was made and in my Amazon account. I have just ordered a replacement and it should arrive tomorrow. I just could not get that model gimbal to work as it was supposed to. The one I have ordered is a completely different make and model. I had considered ordering it last night, but I have to be at home in order to sign for it, as it is quite expensive. I should be going to Camphill today, which is why I've delayed the order. I think this is to assure that they deliver to the correct person. You get sent a code which you have to give to the delivery driver. It assures security, and I'm fine with that.

6.10 p.m. I have been to Camphill as I normally do, and worked in the theatre workshop. I had missed the previous week, and the gang knew that it was because Alfie hadn't been well last Tuesday. 

The morning was taken up with fire training. How to recognize fire hazards and how to deal with incidents of fire. The theatre workshop group sat in the 'gods' section of the seating, whilst the Camphill care staff sat below in the body of the hall. At the end of the morning, staff had the opportunity to operate a couple of fire extinguishers. I have done this type of course before, which was done at Bromham Hospital when I started working as a support worker for the  Bedford Hospital N.H.S. back in the late 1990s. As a result of all this, although very necessary, we did no work on the silent comedies we are developing. 

After lunch, Terrie (the leader of the workshop.) produced some props from her own collection, which could be used in the silent comedy films we are creating. 

Later on, my group went downstairs to the costume room to select costumes for our films. The guys seem to find suitable costumes for themselves, but I was searching for a suit. There is a whole rack of suits, but nothing in my size, so I will go to a charity shop and see if I can find something there. It's quite likely I can get something for around £10-£15.

Wednesday. 6.00 a.m. I was wide awake at 4.45 and couldn't get back to sleep. This is quite normal for me. I decided to clear up the kitchen from last night and sorted my recycling and rubbish. Tied up both bags and took them out to the bins later on. Then I took out Alfie at around 5.20. Another circuit of Oldbrook Green.

10.30 a.m. I purchased ink cartridges for my Canon printer. As it gets a fair amount of use, and it was likely that the ink would get used up rapidly, I thought it might be a good idea to have some set by in storage for the moment the ink was running low. You used to be able to buy these cartridges from Sainsbury's, but they no longer have them on the shelves. The reason I was told, by a member of staff, was that they get stolen by shoppers. It's the same with Gillette Pro and Mach cartridge blades, which are quite expensive. It would appear that some people will steal anything if they imagine they can get away with it, which is why this sort of item tends to be fitted with an electronic device that will sound an alarm if they don't go through the check-outs in a correct manner. I ordered a couple of these cartridges from Viking, an online retailer which sells stationery items. The ink cartridges have remained in the drawer of the printer unit for a couple of months. I have used the printer several times and the ink cartridges which came with it when I bought it have not been replaced. Until yesterday, when I wanted to print and the printer showed that the ink was running low. It wasn't until I opened up the printer, ready to put in the new cartridges, that I discovered that they were the wrong type and wouldn't work in the printer. I really wanted to be able to use the printer, and it's no point in having the thing if it doesn't work. I imagined that Argos would have ink cartridges, the reasoning being because that was where the printer came from. 

I drove to Argos and went inside the store and had to look for the ink cartridges on one of the computer screens to then discover that they didn't have any of the types I wanted in stock. I then decided to drive to the shopping centre to go to W.H. Smith's to find out if they had ink cartridges. I made a mistake and had to drive around the centre of Milton Keynes to arrive at the car park close to The Point and had intended to use the Ring Go app on my iPhone, but for some reason, I needed to put in the password and when I     attempted this, it wouldn't work. Frustrated by this, I decided to return home and think about where else I could obtain the ink cartridges.

I will have to leave the purchase of the ink cartridges until I can find somewhere that stocks them. There is no 'bricks and mortar' stationer anywhere in this area, unfortunately.

Working In Care- Part 2

I have mentioned in an earlier post my time working in care (hence this post being labelled 'working in care- part 2).

I will discuss here the earlier stage of my carework career. 

I did some voluntary work for Macintyre care in the late '80's, at their school in Westoning, near Flitwick, Bedfordshire. I worked mainly in the workshops, supporting some of the residents, making masks, puppets etc and sometimes taking them out into the communtiy, for example, swimming. It seems amazing looking back that they didn't appear to run any sort of criminal checks, although they might have done a Police check on me (now superceded by C.R.B., Criminal Records Bureau).  I also did a job working in an old people's home to increase my income, at a home in Bedford called Hextle House in Linden Road, doing the odd weekend shift, so I had quite a bit of experience of care work,  so by the late 90's, having done a lot of industrial  temp work, I decided to get a full-time care job working with people with learning disabilities. I applied for several N.H.S. jobs, and in one particular week I had three job interviews, one for  the job of support worker at a home run my the N.H.S. in Merton Road in Bedford, another for the Sensory Department at Bromham Hospital and the last for a support worker role at Vincent House, which I eventually got. The interviews were held at Bromham Hospital, and as the interviews were over the same week I met several of the same people who interviewed me over the three days. I was sure I was going to get one of the jobs, but not the Vincent House job. Having got the job, I didn't immediately start work as the manager, had to attend her mother's funeral in Ireland so the induction for the job was delayed by around six weeks (this was in 1996). 

Vincent House is/was (I'm not certain whether it is still open.) an assessment and treatment unit for people with learning disabilities who presented extreme challenging behaviours. The house, which is on the outskirts of Bromham,  a village just outside Bedford and on the road to Northampton, had been shut down for refurbishment and some of the original staff were re-employed for the re-opening, but I joined just as they were taking on new staff members. Bromham Hospital had been the home of a quite large number of people with learning disabilities and this was about to close, with the residents being moved out of the hospital setting and into houses within the community around various villages and towns around Bedfordshire, under the government's 'Care In The Community' policy. I did quite a few shifts for the N.H.S. on their Carebank register as a sort of 'warm-up' for work at Vincent house and worked in several of those homes between Luton and North Bedfordshire which gave me quite a bit of experience. Most shifts began at around 7 a.m and ran until 2 p.m. and late shifts from 2-2.30 p.m. until around 9-10 p.m. So being in care you have to accept that you are going to have to work unsocial hours and also work weekends. At Vincent House we had also to do nights, which I found very difficult as I am a day sort of person. I will mention this more as I continue writing this.
We did eventually start the induction process, which ran for several weeks. It was a period spent at Twinwoods, which had formerly been Clapham Hospital, and now run as the headquarters for the learning disability department of what was then Bedfordshire and Luton N.H.S. Trust, who was my employer and ran not only Vincent House but all the other learning disabilities homes which had been opened to house the residents of Bromham Hospital which I have mentioned earlier was being closed down. The manor house had been used as the administrative centre for the N.H.S. learniing disabilities service and was where I went for my inital interview. There were several houses built for the learning disabilities department at The Glades, but the rest of the Bromham Hospital site was sold for housing and the mansion became a private dwelling. Vincent House was on the road running out of Bromham and around three miles from Bromham Hospital.
The purpose of Vincent House was for the assessment and treatment of clients of the learning diabilities service who presented challening behaviours that the staff in the homes couldn't cope with and where they used various techniques to try and deal with the behaviours, different medications and care procedures, then the clients were returned to their respective homes in the community.
Amongst my jobs was to be a key worker for a number of the clients in our care, looking after their day to day care, buying their clothes, reviewing their medication and generally building up a relationship with them so as to care for them successfully.