Today was knitting and stitching show fun, made even more fun for winning tickets. Myself and Wendy wandered around, buying little but really enjoying ourselves. Coffee from RDS canteen thing is vile, though, I should remember that for next time I'm out there (I keep forgetting.)

Lots of catching up then into town for more coffee and chatting when we finally found somewhere. Neither of us know where's good for coffee anymore and it's not like the O'Connell St. area was ever the best for it anyway and certainly not after 6 on a Sunday. She's started a new job and making comparisons to oldHospital is always fun. She mentioned she'd been looking after someone with a Bartholin's cyst a while back and thought of me. How sweet :)

Got home to find someone else had done the dishes after dinner and even left me some food. Whole lotta yay goin' on.

I am currently boggling over school uniforms. Darling nieces go to a wonderful, wonderful school that is very lucky to receive more funding than most because of the catchment area being one of the more deprived ones in the town so class sizes are bleedin' tiny compared to the school I went to (no, really tiny, Emma has 17 in her class. Kids in the school I went to have 30+.) They try so hard to keep costs down - book loan schemes and the like - and the parish church organises a lot of activities for free/next to nothing. In short, it's a brilliant school. Yet their uniform is one that can only be bought in one shop in the town. Tunics cost between 25 and 40 euro, skirts 20+, uniform tracksuits are 30+. (Blouses and cardigans just have to be light blue and navy respectively so can at least be bought wherever the hell parents want.)

I know it's only a small thing, but really, just a little daft.

When I rule the world, yadda yadda...

Knitting's kinda cool. Before Christmas last year, the last thing I'd knit was a jumper in September 1988 and that was enough to put me off for quite a while, especially as it was so loosely knit it still fits me and I'm a good bit bigger now than when I was 10. I'm working on my second big project for me, a rather fetching geansaí in grey acrylic cos a) acrylic is cheap and b) acrylic doesn't make me want to take a brillo pad to my skin. So far it's been ripped back entirely once and one of the smaller cables fixed once. Need to do the same crazy juggling of crochet hooks and safety pins tomorrow, as in my frazzled and exhausted state this evening I managed to make the same sodding mistake again. It's all learning.

My first sunflower is properly out, my first courgettes harvested and thoroughly nommed. There's probably going to be way too many of them to be eaten here so any extras are going up to one of mum's nuns who keeps sending us the most delicious waxy potatoes. I love waxy spuds, don't give me any of those awful balls of flour because I like my food to have a good chance of remaining on my fork until it gets to my mouth. Balls of flour are useless for anything other than boiling anyway, whereas a good waxy spud is so versatile. There are two baby cucumbers on the only surviving plant (they really don't like being potted up or disturbed at all) that are about 3cm long. SandyDog has killed near enough all the onions and I've given up on them. Unlike slugs, I'm not allowed kill her. Martha would be quite upset. I'd love to know what she thinks she has buried in my raised bed that needs to be dug up, but the hole is now big enough that she can lie in it without being seen.

Yeasties are brilliant, too, though I've got nothing fermenting at the minute bar the chocolate mead as I'm out of room and need to figure out some things about storage and whether or not I still want to do it anyway. This is the sort of weather I like for bread, so blaas are going to feature heavily in my diet over the next couple of days. I'd give a firstborn for some real blaas from the Waterford blaa mines, though. Not my own, obviously.

Social things have been happening lately, some of which were an awful lot of fun with pretties and others which weren't so much. Have roped poor S into spending a good portion of tomorrow with me as I need some immoral support and who better than him to provide. Need to get to Cork again soonish, want Cake and hugs and kittehs and giggling and movies but also need Dublin and beer and hugs there, too. Have barely left Drogheda in months and this self-imposed exile is starting to get to me. But onwards, upwards. Still breathing.

Life is full of questions and occasional mysteries wot can be solved.

Like where did that micra come from that was blocking our drive for a week? Answer: still unsure but it got driven away today.

And why are there no chips to be had delivered in Drogheda after 0200? Answer: Cos it's a godawful town, but tweet about it, then someone who you can't actually find on twitter will offer to deliver some to you cos he's quite a nice boy sometimes and cos twitter fixes everything.

And how did I manage to get a paper cut on my nipple? Answer: not everything should be kept down bra, especially not bus tickets.

And what can I get pierced? Answer: Still dunno but do still want some new metal stuck through me. Shiny shiny metal.

Today was brewday. Stuck on another gallon of super sticky (the second mead recipe I made, and by far the best received) and oh my God chocolate mead. If the wort is anything to go by, and it usually is, this is something that's going to be bottled in very small bottles. Not because of alcohol content - I never intentionally brew above 10% and most of the yeasts I use just don't tolerate anything higher than 14% ABV before dying happy deaths - but because it's.... obscenely good. Trust me when I say I know what obscenely good tastes like.

The recipe says not to drink it for at least two years. That's going to be very difficult. Adapted it quite a bit, adding a decent amount of vanilla and a few other secrets. Very much looking forward to it being ready. In the meantime, I've the last bottle of apple pie sitting beside me, warmed as it releases the cinnamon kick that bit better. I love how different meads are best served at different temperatures. Slightly sticky is best at room temp, original number 1 mead best chilled, apple pie warm.

I've been brewing on and off on my own since about 1998, still learning lots with each batch. Don't want to wait to see what the chocolate has to teach me, but I guess deferred gratification is a skill I have to learn sometime.

Today I cleared out my locker in work. It wasn't quite as bad an experience as I thought it would be. Thankfully, the time I'd chosen to nip in and do it was one where there weren't many people around - evening breaks hadn't yet started and short-day staff had gone home already.

That locker has accumulated a lot of stuff over the years. I found report sheets from 2008 that need shredding, three pairs of shoes, a tin of tuna, my netbook, two t-shirts, a pair of pyjamas, two coats, one stethoscope, a pot noodle, a tube of bonjela, tea bags, a travel mug, an umbrella, a kettle, four empty cigarette packets, three hair clippy things, a towel, a radio, my most comfortable black bra and my crocs. The PINK mini-fridge that Santy brought me for my little room in res was also there, but not in the locker. Most of the stuff has gone out to Blanch, awaiting delivery some time after myself and Wendy do a yarn run followed by a mead tasting session. I might try and get a bottle of Bunratty, just to see what the competition's like.

Next trip I'll hand back the key, along with my swipe.

Apart from a couple of hours of what can only be described as "wah", I've been pretty stable emotionally since finding out. Almost happy. I do need to sort out a decent massage sometime as shoulders should not look as if they're attached to your earlobes (I hunch when stressed) but other than that I'm mostly ok. And maybe that's enough to tell me that this wasn't for me, after all. Still not making any decisions though, right now I don't trust myself with anything longer term than "hot chocolate or coffee?" Which reminds me, I've some Easter eggs that need to be used up. Hot chocolate it is.

There's no easy way to put this. I've failed my placement, I cannot repeat, I will not qualify as a midwife but I can at least take the ordinary degree in midwifery studies. No idea what I can do with that or what I want to do with it, but this weekend I'm feeling particularly delicate so lots of looking after myself will happen.

All I have to talk about is work. That's not a bad thing, really, cos I do love it so. I love, love, love the warm fuzzies from seeing how my care (my care! me! mine!) turned someone from scared, in tears and about to give up on ever getting that baby to feed, into someone smiling and laughing at just how brilliant her body was at feeding her baby. I love having students of my very own. I love handing over at the end of the day (this used to scare the bejaysus out of me cos I'm all quiet and shy and stuff.)

I'd like it if I could figure out how to talk about hand expressing without showing how to do it. Using my own boobs, I mean. Uh, not that I whip 'em out, but you can always tell which is my dominant hand cos that's the side of the white tunic that has a distinct C shaped grubby bit roughly where my nipple is. I keep meaning to knit a couple of boobs for just this purpose, but that'd just be another thing to stick in a pocket and already there's a lot in there: stethoscope, thermometer, alky gel, alky wipes, pens, report sheet, notebook, scissors, random stuff I've picked up over the day.

Staying in town for the few nights made me realise how much I love and miss Dublin. There was tea and conversation + hugs and sleepy beer + hugs and explaining that, no, Dublin is not in England, no, really, trust me on that one you silly person in hostel. People in work have been surprised that I prefer hostels to taking a room in the hospital res, but the isolation in res is horrendous and while I might have to sleep in the same room as a bunch of strangers in a hostel, I get to talk to a bunch of people, too, which is super fun.

Life is being good at the minute. Family well, me confident, sleeping going ok, dad's now 8 stone 12 (that's nearly 4 of yer old money stone up since first lungs of jam stuff in 07). Off to Cyavanish for the night on Monday for favourite uncle's 50th, looking forward to having an excuse to wear a pretty dress. Lots of good going on. And now, breakfast.

Snippets of lovely things from this week:
- using a language other than English to help a woman with her baby, getting a hug when she left
- a photo of babies born last month to someone I looked after in first year
- making people boggle that I remembered her
- having the knowledge to help someone hand express colostrum for her very sick baby
- brownies! Lots of people leave chocolates, brownies make a nice change (a punnet of strawberries with a bunch of grapes remains my favourite present ever, though)
- sleep. Sleeping more than 6 hours before work is absolutely amazing to me
- doing good, not actively doing evil
- seeing some classmates for the first time since September, slagging Ruthie off terribly, hugging Lyns to death
- not freaking the hell out about giving handover
- remembering to maintain hydration in ridiculously warm environment while wearing polycotton uniform (need to drink >5L/day to pee during working hours) thus saving myself a course of antibiotics
- bouncing about knitting to link lecturer, bouncing about her getting a research fellowship
- now having 5 days off before I'm in W, Th, F next week, will be staying in town Tu,W,Th nights.

This week, life is good.

I'm often struck by just how bloody small the world is. The guy I most certainly wasn't seeing for four years is very close to the now ex-husband of a classmate. daya_slyth, who I met on an LJ student comm but not yet in real life is the niece of a neighbour. Simon, who I met 10 years ago in Dublin through mutual Australian friends, is the cousin of one of Martha's exes. William, who I was shacked up with for a couple of years, is my (distant!) cousin and I just can't bring myself to ever let natural20 know who I do anything entertaining with cos, well, the world is bloody small and he would giggle. All of which makes me wonder, just how many other (blood) family members have I accidentally slept with? Let's face it, if the world is small Ireland is teenchy and I've had an adventurous girlhood.

Been thinking a lot lately about old loves, let's blame Springtime and lambs and sap and stuff. There are still so many of them that are such a big part of my life and that's just brilliant. Though again, world is small, first boy I kissed is the son of a nurse who trained with my mum. I know I've said this a lot lately but with the exception of one exceptionally bad judgement call, I've been a very lucky fishie indeed to still have such lovely people in my life as dear friends. That said, still more than happy being single, though at this stage I've probably forgotten how nice it is not to be. Coming to the end of my training, facing the option of part-time 3 month contracts at home or permanent full-time abroad, it's nice to not have anything keeping me here.

Speaking of ending training, dad was asking last night how much longer I've left. And then you'll be a qualified midwife? Yup, have started job applications already. I don't think I've seen him grin so much about my education before, ever. It's not even so much that they want me out of the house, I hope, more that I've finally found something I want to do. On target to passing this placement, which will leave just one more 6 week stint until I get to finally sign my name at work and follow it with RM instead of std m/w. Can't wait.