First day in happy Valley

Not much to say at the moment. I have been here just over the 24 hours and still finding my feet.

It appears we each have a room to ourselves – TV (cable) – stereo etc. I brought my own DVD player and about 250 movies so am set for a while. Food is what you would expect (politically correct food for god’s sake) and small portions to boot.

Routine seems pretty standard. Wake about 0700 (officially), breakfast or something that they pretend is breakfast (bloody rabbit food).
Then it’s down to the other stuff – tests – BP, scans, bloodtests (they love taking blood for some reason) echo, which is evidently different to a scan. By this time you are completely fed up and ready to hurt somebody – this seems to get across as they take you back to the room and vanish until after when is laughingly called lunch.
After lunch today I was supposed to just rest but needed information if the stay here is to be suitable. Now I have learned that it’s no good trying to get info from nurses (who won’t say) or doctors as they usually don’t know much.
However, I have always found wardies, (or whatever they are called in your country - they do a lot of the manual stuff the others don’t want to do), great fonts of knowledge and ready to pass on news and general information.
Over the next day or so I will find out:
Where the visitor’s cafeteria is located
A general layout of the whole place
Where is the nearest pub and how to get to it
Security for the place, times of lockdowns etc
Entrances – lifts – staff passageways.
Shift times for the staff - medical and admin.

Once all this is gathered it will be time to gather a few cohorts and start getting some decent food and drink. That’s if there are any around with sufficient spirit left to take a few chances. In all probability after the first run they will plug the gaps, it’s more the planning and doing than getting the food and stuff, it simply makes a change from the routine and shouts that you are an independent person not a bed number.
Now I am going back to my room, put my feet up and watch the old 50s version of ‘The Thing’ by then I expect somebody will have arrived with dinner, god knows what that will be. Still it’s good that they encourage blogs and stuff, I think it’s all part of the treatment – for once they are thinking – letting people keep the old brain active – lousy PCs though, slow and limited – I tried to log into a porn site but the old ‘Restricted Website Content’ barrier came down – still give me a day or so and I think I can break the script causing the lockout – you never know I might be able to make a few a few bucks renting ‘R’ rated websites to the chaps. As this is a cardiac wing I’m sure it would make a few depart with a smile on their faces …