L'Escarguh-oh!

Day 3 of my 2 weeks of annual leave. I've done very little really, caught up with some laundry, watched some movies, drank a lot of vodka, read some books, been to dialysis of course. The weather is glorious and I'm feeling rather smug about managing to predict a good time to take off after a month of almost constant rain. No doubt it will all come back to bite me on the arse when I get back to work to begin the normal mass clear-up operation that usually follows an absence. I hate being considered indispensible, indeed you would think that in a military organisation that business goes on with or without you ... trouble is that I do all the little administrative tasks that everyone thinks are straightforward when in fact they can be the least straightforward of the lot. There aren't any checklists for writing a letter but there are hundreds for maintaining an aircraft. And believe you me, high ranking people can get awfully excited when a letter isn't in the right format.

This morning I had to make an unscheduled trip to the dialysis unit in order to get my arm scanned with the ultrasound scanner so the staff could see where they need to be aiming their needles (I shaved 7 minutes off travel time to have a new personal best of 28 minutes and I was showered, teeth brushed, blown dry, made-up & dressed in 14 minutes which must be, I immodestly brag, a world record for a woman). I need to get rid of the central line in my chest as soon as possible so it's imperative to get the fistula in my arm in use. The course of the blood vessels have been mapped by the conveniently placed freckles on my upper arm. Tomorrow we shall see if the nurses can hit red gold.

Things I have learnt this week:

1. Snails come out mostly after dark
2. They travel in packs (note to self, must find out the collective noun for multiples of snails ... a Bryan of snails maybe?)
3. Even if you pretreat for several hours with Vanish, squashed snail does not wash out of your socks.