Ah work. I truly love being a nurse – at times a shift can be dreadfully stressful, exhausting, seemingly never ending and insurmountable – those shifts are usually worked on the general medical ward! But being a paediatric nurse is most often lovely. Caring for children AND their families is just my cup of tea. Add in a sweet baby and I’m all smiles.
But do I ever want to GO to work? Nope. Never. Morning shifts are always so early and last aaaaalllll day. Nightshifts are largely horrendous. Not because of the work (usually) but because I simply am not made to be awake in the wee hours. Between 3 and 5:30am, I feel almost delirious with fatigue – words are slower and I’m sure sometimes, as I’m sitting at the desk, entering notes, I may even drool a little as my head nods away. (Be assured, once that buzzer rings, I spring back into life :-)
No, I’m truly a house mouse (to coin a phrase I read on instagram this morning!). I would cheerfully stay here on top of our hill, in the fields or garden of our wee farm, and especially inside with fabric and wool and needle in hand.
So afternoon shifts appeal to me the most … all those morning hours to potter about here at home. Slow autumn breakfasts to cook. Bread to proof. Supper to bake. Animals to not just frantically feed and water, but to stop and chat, to stroke and pet. Gardens to half admire and half despair – all those weeds! all that kikuyu! all those haws and rosehips as yet not put to good use!
But then, I glance at the clock and by golly! It’s almost 12 already and there’s still a shower to be had, washing to hang, bed to make … and that blissful thoughts I pondered as I was still tucked up in bed with a coffee of sewing a tshirt or decorating a little wooden house or dressing up a green fuzzy rabbit … no. They’ll be set aside for yet another day.
There’s children to woo. Medications to dole out. Families to assure. And never ending notes to write.