I should have known it was going to be one of those weeks. It started when I walked into the office to submit my timesheets and there was Charisma having a meltdown. Sitting at her desk head down and chanting ‘no nurses, no nurses, no nurses’ over and over again. I won’t lie, a little bit of wee came out when she lifted her head to look at me – she was physically frothing at the mouth. I rushed over thinking that she needed some medical attention, only to find that she had popped her daily dose of Berocca directly into her mouth instead of dispersing it in water. We cleaned her up and sat down with a cuppa while she offloaded about the shortage of nurses. Me being me (aka idiot), said that I was happy to do a few more shifts if it would help her out. She soon brightened up at that and gave me a fortnight rota for a place I’d never been to before…Knutton Mansions. When I arrived, I was greeted at the door with ‘Hi! My name’s Charlie – I’m your knickers for the day...

I think the honeymoon period with this nursing agency is over. If I was a paranoid person I would think that the ever charming Charisma had contacted the Manager at Sunshine and said something like ‘that Florence is far too fat, I’ve still got her size 10 uniform here that she has failed to get into, so work her like a donkey… because she certainly looks like one’. As always, I’m sitting on this damn bus and I would kick my shoes off for a bit of relief but I’m not sure that I’d get them back on. Can haggis get pregnant? If they can then that’s my feet. I’d best not kick them off anyway…the smell would paralyse the driver and I’m just not up to driving a bus home tonight. I arrived at Sunshine this morning and all I can say is, thank God for Rita. And thank God we have been working a lot better together lately after our little talk . The Manager told me that she had to go out that morning to assess a few patients so I would have to attend the weekly MDT meeting. Not a ...