Boomtown Rat

Because like Sir Bob, I don't like Mondays anymore.

It was back down to earth with a bump worthy of a Fraser Island sand blow this morning. Not even a skinny flat white from the university coffee shop could cheer me up. The woman who works in the university refectory takes ages to make coffee because she has to grind the beans and fluff the milk and tot up the price. In the three or four minutes I have to stand at the counter I can mentally devour a slice of raspberry bread, a poppy-seed friand, millionaire shortbread and miniature cheesecake with a swirl of caramel on top. If only she'd hurry up with the coffee this torture could be prevented.

Today was my first day flying solo with the caseload and my first patient was at 9.30am on the other side of town. I took the company car and immediately wished I hadn't when I got inside and realised it was an automatic, which meant a quick refresher course in drive, park and neutral and a real effort not to go for the clutch or the shift stick.

And then I got there and there was a physiotherapist and an OT wanting to watch me at work so I had to look extra professional and stroke my chin in an extra-academic kind of way and all of this on five hours sleep, since it took me until 12.50am to finish uploading those 10 megapixel babies to the blog. I know you enjoy reading this blog but I don't half suffer for it.

This afternoon I went out on another visit to Canterbury. I didn't even know Canterbury existed outside Kent until I read the address and got into such a panic trying to get myself sorted out that I left the building without the casenotes (and hence without the address) and had to turn back and get them. And then I sat looking at the UBD (A-Z) and realised I had twenty minutes to get to the address and I'd have to navigate across four different pages of the book to find it. Sometimes it all seems like such a mental and physical challenge that I just want to go home and I mean home to the UK. At other times I think, no, this is good, it's character-building. Most of the time I just feel like my whole world has been put into a bag and shaken up.

Anyway, they weren't in when I got there so I phoned them on my mobile phone. And then I thought "Shit, I've just given one of my patients my mobile number". I'd never do that in the UK, but then here in Australia it doesn't matter because it's like a pretend life. I commented on it to Darren this evening and he agreed. It's like living two parallel lives or like living in a very vivid dream, the sort where you wake up and say "I just dreamt we were in Australia and we were driving through a rainforest and then I was at work and I didn't know what I was doing and then you rang me and said you'd just been offered a job working as a helicopter rescue doctor".

And he has, and what's more, I think he might accept it. The four-wheel driving has gone to his head, which I shall now be checking for the little button on the back that make his eyes move from left to right. One weekend on Fraser Island and he thinks he's Action Man.