SIX CHILDREN AND A CUCKOO CLOCK

I love clocks and mirrors! Not to an obsession because I have some rooms without either but my kitchen has a very large station clock, a timer clock and a cuckoo clock. Having friends who live in Switzerland I received a small cuckoo clock from there but I have always wanted a large cuckoo clock so last Christmas Anastasia bought me one. I love it BUT.......it is like having an extra member of the family that you have to consider constantly!
Due to my disabilities and Beauty needing watching 24/7 , we had an extension built a few years ago which meant that Beauty and I could have adjoining bedrooms but the extension is on the ground floor and the extra bedroom comes off the kitchen. AND the cuckoo clock works on a light sensor(well who would have thought it?Not me!) which means that the room where the clock is has to have it's light switched off before bed-time as the clock seems to have a light memory time of over an hour. 'Move it' I hear you all shouting at the stupid mother but not so easy, it cannot go in the lounge as Beauty would tear it off the wall. The hall walls are all thin board and nothing stays up very long and the second half of the kitchen wouldn't be any good as the clock has such a loud cuckoo you could hear it in Geneva, so that leaves the front kitchen.
Already I have suspended the use of the pendulum because that swings every second and is louder than the cuckoo! The cuckoo is so loud that it interrupts conversation and quite regularly I tell it to ,'Shut up' or say to it ,'Who asked for your opinion'. Beauty is at that stage where she says thing that really seem as if she understands a lot more than she wants you to think and her conversation at times can be alarmingly relevant. She also seems to include the cuckoo in her conversations! Yep, I know .............cuckoo the lot of us!

What a little sweetheart.

Did you know

Ad campaign features newest NI model
A little Belfast girl has been chosen to represent the British Skin Foundation to help the charity raise funds.Anyone travelling in the London Underground will soon get the chance to see latest cover girl Olivia Curran.The three-year-old is not exactly camera shy.When she was given the opportunity to become the new face for the British Skin Foundation - she jumped at the chance.Her mother Patricia said Olivia has a birthmark which covers most of the left-hand side of her face.

The following is a wonderful piece of research. Whereas some of the research that I highlighted yesterday may have been a little obvious in the outcome, this definitely offers hope. As someone who has had MRSA and had a friend die from it ,I can only hope that the results of this research are found to be valid and can be used to combat super bugs.

Essential oils 'combat superbug'
Tests of new machine at a hospital have found it could be effective in the battle against the superbug MRSA.Consultants at Wythenshawe Hospital found that using a vaporiser to spray essential oils into the atmosphere killed off micro-organisms.Airborne bacterial counts dropped by 90% and infections were reduced in a nine-month trial at the burns unit.The recipe of oils used in the machine was refined by microbiologists at Manchester Metropolitan University.Scent Technologies, the Wigan-based company which makes the machine, developed the device to mask smells on wards but found it had a beneficial effect on infections.The study was started after the recipe of oils was modified by the university team, in conjunction with Wythenshawe consultant Ken Dunn."Many people will be aware that there are decades of experience with the use of essential oils to control infection," said Mr Dunn."I think the novelty of this is putting the two researched technologies together and being able to affect a really surprisingly large area of the ward with a single machine."There were no MRSA infections in the burns unit while the machine was being used with the recipe of oils.In the final two months the natural essence blend was removed from the machines and MRSA levels in the air increased - and there was an MRSA outbreak in the ward.But despite the apparent success of the trial, MRSA campaigners have urged healthcare professionals to continue with strict cleaning regimes.Bev Hurst, whose mother Margaret died from an MRSA infection, said: "If this is something that is going to help then that's brilliant."But it has to be in conjunction with everything else - it can't just be a machine on a ward."The National Audit Office estimates hospital-acquired infections contribute to some 5,000 deaths annually. Further tests are now being carried out.

Did you know(listen careful because I have a theory on this but don't quote me!)

MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) was first detected in Britain in 1961 and is now "quite common" in hospitals (from Wikipedia)

How is it that MRSA was first diagnosed in 1961 but has only really become an issue in hospitals in the 90's and now?
I think it has developed because of a number of reasons.

I started training in to be a nurse in 1980 and did further nurse training in 1996 so I feel that I have enough experience(however limited) to comment on the changes in hospitals and nursing in the intervening 16 years.
The cleaning of the wards has been outsourced to the bidder who can do it for the cheapest amount of money in the shortest time. In 1980 the ward cleaner/maid cleaned the ward daily and maintained it to a high standard of cleanliness. Now when I visit hospitals I see dirty furniture, dirty walls(as portrayed in the Trial of Tony Blair),dirty floors and bulging bags of rubbish and dirty laundry.
When I trained as a nurse in 1980 we were taught how to wash beds between patients, clean lockers and do a whole load of other tasks which put the nursing staff in control of hygiene and in closer contact with the patients. This no longer happens because there are so few nurses per patient so that the patients are lucky to get basic nursing care as the nurses are being run ragged. When I trained again in 1996 most of our nursing care studies revolved around giving the patient Total Holistic Care.

Holistic Nursing Practice takes a whole-person approach to nursing addressing both medical and psychosocial concerns.

To borrow the words of Jim Royle of the Royle Family , 'Holistic Care...............MY ARSE'
Th RGN Nurses barely have time to give the patients medication, do dressings, endless paperwork, Doctor's rounds...........the list is endless, they may want to provide holistic care but many things are against them actually providing holistic care.
Th following article shows this

The lure of nursing 'Down Under'
They entered nursing with high hopes of working in a valued profession which made a difference to peoples' lives.But the staff shortages and cash cutbacks have taken their toll on nurses such as Sarah Hector and Rob Carey who have joined the exodus of staff heading for Australia.According to the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) 3,200 nurses of the 8,000 registering to work abroad want to work Down Under.Senior intensive care nurse Sarah, left her job in London worn down by the National Health Service's problems."I was sad to leave the people and my friends because the people here are brilliant but it's just the conditions, the lack of staff, the lack of finance that I'm not sad to be leaving," she told BBC One's Real Story."You just come away each day feeling demoralised. You've given your utmost best yet you still can't give the level of care that your are trained to do and would so love to give."She added: "I think my grievance with the NHS is a national thing - I think it is shared all over the UK."Everybody who works within the NHS, I think to a certain extent are disillusioned and would like change."

The article carries on

"I've been here for two years. You're really well supported, really well educated whereas where I used to work in the UK you'd have 12 to 15 patients and it would just be dangerous.
"When I got here they had a strict five to one ratio - five patients to one nurse - and I just thought oh my goodness because that would never have happened in England," she added.

So my theory is that money is the root of all evil (well dirt anyway).
You take the funding away and what do you think is going to happen?


An extra £400m to be allocated to the Ministry of Defence to cover overseas commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

What do I say to my 15 year old on the autistic spectrum when she asks why the government is spending £400m on 'Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere' when she knows that we have to fight for every penny in educational funding for her sister. Will the following

Investment in schools, hospitals, security and defence and infrastructure will rise from £43bn this year to £60bn by 2012

be enough to pay for repairs to crumbling schools, pay for resources and facilities for schools, more nurses and cleaner wards and suitable after-care for returning soldiers.

There is a pathetic group of unsupported ex-servicemen, who may be suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder, who are homeless, jobless and wifeless

If a 2p reduction in the income tax rate is a pathetic attempt to garner votes for a political aim then don't bother Mr Brown, that money could have been put to many good uses.


Last night I managed to watch Freaky Eaters before my eyes would stay open no longer after Beauty's early morning wake-up.
In a way I did not think that the person on the show was a Freaky Eater she just had a good old fashioned food addiction.

Episode 6: Addicted to chicken
Everything about Debbie Ezeogu's life is great - her job, her friends, her flat. Everything, that is, except for her diet - a high fat, high salt and high sugar cocktail of fried chicken, takeaways and ready meals. At just 24 years old, Debbie is already clinically obese and risking some serious health problems. Can our experts help Debbie to understand why she resorts to food for comfort?

And her behaviour was that of a 14 year old child! All I could think was this girl didn't really want any help just 15 minutes of fame on TV. After a disastrous 45 minutes of the program where she didn't co-operate at all(she claimed that the lime juice in her Vodka was a portion of fruit") the finale was for her to produce a healthy meal for Natalie the nutritionist and Benjamin Fry the psychotherapist. Debbie ended up drunk on the kitchen floor!
You could tell that Natalie and Benjamin were less than impressed.
Many of these type of 'make-over' shows are predictable, take Super Nanny for instance, 45 minutes of the viewer wondering why social services are not called then in the last 15 minutes they become family of the year!
Well Freaky Eaters was anything but predictable last night, Debbie your eating habits may not have changed a lot but you were highly entertaining and are assured of a place in my memory.