Filming Follies

After my last post my camera started malfunctioning and I just didn't wanna post without pix. The camera store told me they "didn't do Kodak" so I couldn't get a camera battery there, which was the first problem, and ended up taking 3 weeks to get one ordered off eBay and received. Then it was outta juice the next time I tried to use it. Ordered another battery, same thing happened and now I'm getting a message that the memory card needs to be reformatted. So, even the pictures I managed to get but not download are gonna be gone.

Here's what's coming up the next few weeks:

- Saturday going to pick up a package at the depot in a village near Maidstone, then meeting up with my friend Evelyn for shopping and eating in Chatham
- Getting my desktop computer set up
- Finalizing my digital piano rental order (I put the deposit but the paperwork is lagging behind)
- October 8 Dr. Who Live at Wembley Stadium
- October 9 haircut in the afternoon and friend's concert in the evening
- Taking my driving theory test October 21
- If I pass, time to start scheduling driving lessons so I can pass the practical and have my UK licence by February 1, a year after arriving!

Plus the usual shopping, cooking, laundry, kitty bonding time, 50+ hour weeks, etc.

It's all good though!!! I've had loads of fun trips since my last post and will be having loads more. Hopefully I'll get the camera situation resolved one way or another soon. I wasn't happy with some of the last shots I took anyway. Had what I thought would be great pix of St. Paul's Cathedral from the Thames and they didn't look at all like I'd hoped they would. Plus the screen on the Kodak, you can't see it in the daylight. I mean, I'm bummed that a $110 camera didn't even last a year, but I think it's time to accept it and move on.

Duty Week, Couch Surfing and Me

Work continues to be busy and interesting. Another duty week last week . . . no, wait . . . it was week before last but the late nights bled into this week . . . which is why I haven't posted for a while. I don't have my diary at home b/c I've been trying to get my work computer going; tech support is only open 8:30 to 5:30 so I left the office about 3:30 yesterday so I could be at home when tech support was available. Didn't get it going yesterday but did today, so I COULD have entered some mileage that I am trying to get submitted but without the diary I don't know what I did in May. Will hafta finish it next week.

I do recall having late nights a week ago Thursday, Friday, Tuesday and again Thursday. Training on Wednesday and that's when I took an hour to take my computer in as their office is in Maidstone, which is where the training was. So I spent an hour doing that and then couldn't get the computer going the next day . . . ugh. Anyway, it's working at the mo. It runs much slower than in the office but it does run. *knock wood*

I have couch surfers coming in tonight, C from Germany and her boyfriend M. (Not sure of the etiquette/confidentiality of naming people in a blog.) I signed up to couchsurfing.org a few weeks back so I could get a place to stay when I go to Paris as beds are so expensive there. Meanwhile C contacted me last . . . musta been during duty week. She is a social worker from Germany and is interviewing in Ashford on Monday. I don't know who her interview is with but she told me it's with a children and families team. I don't think it's the team I'm on for various reasons but we shall see.

So I went to the grocery and bought food for company before I checked to make sure I had the needed pots and pans. I have been aware that I was missing a lot of my kitchen stuff but thought I had enough to get by, and I do except . . . no colander . . . no point making pasta without one of those, is there??? Also it's actually HOT so I am not cooking now, which is what I'd planned to be doing today at this time. I did go to Asda to buy sheets for the Aerobed and a fan. Well, they don't have electric fans, so I had to go to Argos for that. Argos is kinda time-consuming b/c you hafta look at the catalog, write down what you want, go pay for it, and then collect it. I'd been to the one in the town centre before but left without buying anything b/c of the time factor, but now I have a car and there is an Argos Extra in a "retail park" as they're called not far from me.

If we decide we want to cook the pasta, we or I can go to the grocery tomorrow and hope there are colanders there.

Meanwhile I worked on cleaning off the garden furniture. It will need another go but I made a good start. The lawn and garden guys did go into the back garden yesterday as I had said I was having company this weekend and wanted that done, but I guess they just put out weed killer??? I thought the weeds would be gone and they're not. Oh well, we can open the patio doors from the living room and/or sit in the conservatory, which is what I've done with previous visitors.

Signing off now to finish getting ready!!!

World Cup and Proms

So, the World Cup is inescapable. It amazes me how important it is over here whereas in the US it gets very little notice, or did when I was there. I mean, to the point of one of my colleagues being asked to try to dress in the colors of at least one of the teams playing that day, as she had managed to wear green and red on the day of a match with Mexico??? (Although she wore the green and red for fashion reasons and not because of the football game, and I haven't kept track of her fashion choices since that day, but heigh-ho.)

It's all led me to try to find out more about the music surrounding the game. Which has led me to the Proms, which are classical music concerts put on by the BBC. The last night of the Proms is a big deal and this is where the traditonal "anthems" are sung. I want to learn them and that's what I'm doing. Learning the tunes is easy (for instance, "Pomp and Circumstance" is one of them, but learning tunes is easy for me anyway) but the words are harder for me.

I've learned "Jerusalem," "Rule Britannia," "Land of Hope and Glory" (sung to the Elgar tune aforementioned which Americans know as "Pomp and Circumstance" and am working on "God Save the Queen," which Americans know as "My Country 'Tis of Thee."

Learned "There'll Always Be An England" when I first came over and still like it, but it doesn't seem as popular as the others. There's a football song about the three lions too, but haven't learned that one yet.

So far the concert that looks most interesting to me is on July 24. Two of the pieces featured will be "O Fortuna" from "Carmina Burana" (which I sang with one of the Austin community choirs in 1984 under director Morris Beachy) and "Mars" from Gustav Holst's "The Planets" (which I forced visitors to my home at yuletide 1977 to listen to, an electronic version by Tomita. Ah, the '70s.)

I suppose part of the reason for this preoccupation is to do something completely different from my job. Last week was duty week for me and I was out doing a placement until 10 p.m. Thursday night. Fortunately I had traded my Friday with another worker but that means I'm on duty tomorrow. Duty tends to wipe me out and I'm not fit for human commerce after work, so I turn to music. Which I love anyway and want to remember that I came over here to LIVE and not just to work!!!

UK funny (but not suitable for minors)

OK, so I think one of my 14YOs is pregnant. Discussed with managers and one said "Well, let's hope he's a Jaffa."

Huh???

"You know what a Jaffa cake is, right???"

"Yup, it's a biscuit." (cookie) "With orange filling."

"So, Jaffa oranges???"

"Yeah???"

"Seedless."

AAAAAAA!!!!!
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!
:)

There's a dead bird in my garden.

At least Toby didn't do it. There are a lotta cats in this neighborhood though.

I'm in the midst of putting all the art work that won't look right on my walls in this place into the garage and keep having to step over the bird. I have cleaned up dead birds before but just can't bring myself to deal with this one.

Tomorrow at 1730 some people are coming to give me an estimate on care for the front and back gardens. I knew I was meant to do garden care but the combo of cold weather and work busyness caused me to have it go off my radar. There's a lawnmower in the garage but it belongs to the landlord. I could probably buy a push mower for the front and some weed killer for the back and get by, but I'm going to take advice first.

We had such lovely spring weather for a while but now it's getting all cloudy again and has been showering intermittently the last week or so. At least I haven't had to wear gloves this weekend as I did last weekend.

I hope the dead bird wasn't the parent of birdlets but I'm positive it was. I know there are lots of nests in this neighbourhood because it is a long established one.

Sigh.

Britain haz coalition govt!!!

When not working I've been glued to the news. I was hoping for a Lab/Lib Dems coalition but it's turned out to be Tories/Lib Dems. I'm still learning about what each party holds near and dear and that is going to be more apparent as they start forming policies. I might have voted Lib Dem were I eligible as the party is into social justice and pro-environmental policies. Then again, I did feel that Gordon Brown was keeping the economy going with deficit spending. People were afraid the pound sterling would plunge with a Lib/Lab coalition but it's actually gone down some anyway. I find it hard to accept that people were and are so afraid of proportional representation when other European countries have been running that way for years. I would be really happy if we had Green Party MPs, not so much for UKIPs. The Green Party did win a seat so that's exciting. I do think in the future the Scottish National Party will be more represented and probably some of the smaller parties as well. IMO the more people are forced to compromise the better policy will come out of it. Too much power in the hands of too few people is a problem in my book.

Work has been busy but interesting. I asked again if I could get the A2K training and today the answer was YES!!!! Hurrah!!! Once I'm trained I can take a laptop home and do my paperwork there. I think I'll be more productive if I can work at home and will be able to avoid the parking hassles sometimes. It has gotten really bad lately. I've been very lucky in finding parking places in the permit lot when I need them but my colleagues have ended up having to park 20 minutes away sometimes. The pay bays near our entrance fill up; heck, ALL the paid parking in the whole Civic Centre fills up. Having to pay for parking is not reimbursable and one can only park for 2 hours at a time, so if you had to park 20 minutes away, you gotta leave work again an hour and 20 minutes later, walk back to your car, look for parking in the permit lot and if you can't find it, go through the whole process again. A lot of wasted time for busy social workers who are already working long hours.

It will be nice if I can spend more time with Toby too. He has been a bit lonely but he LOVES the new cat toys my colleague Mandy passed on from her cat Ravi. I can't get any good pix of him playing with them cuz when I get out the camera he wants me to pick him up, but every night when I turn out the lights he has a play session before he comes upstairs to sleep on my bed. He's a happy boy but he and I will both be happier if he gets a bit more mommy time!!!

I haz fast internet!!!

Getting the package was an adventure. It wouldn't fit through my letterbox so was left at the Royal Mail processing station. Great, I thought, since it is walking distance from work. Can you PARK there, however??? No, you cannot, and as I did not leave enough time on the first morning I tried to pick it up to both park at work and walk there and back, I had to go back the 2nd day. Which turned out fine, as that was April 8 and that's the day my broadband actually went live. I had to call Talk Talk to verify that before setting up. Once I had the go-live verified, I got the router set up and was online in about 10 minutes. Et voila!!! Now I can start catching up on internet activities, especially this blog!!!

It's been a very eventful couple of weeks since I last wrote. I saw the NHS doctor March 29 and he ordered a chest x-ray to see if I even have cardiomyopathy, as he doesn't think I have hypertension. On March 31 I caught the case of a 3MO baby girl who was at the hospital with suspected nonaccidental trauma. After spending half the day on the phone I got out to the hospital about 2:30. At that point I was just going to supervise baby's contact with parents. I sat with them and extended family members until about 4:50, then decided to leave as dad wasn't back from his police interview yet and I had said I would be back at the office about 5. As I was in the parking lot, my mobile rang and I was able to answer it as someone had pulled out in front of me and stopped, so I wasn't technically driving. It was Penny Jed, the child protection nurse specialist, informing me that the baby had MULTIPLE fractures and I needed to get back in there and establish with medical staff that baby wasn't to be alone with any family members. Neither my team leader nor I were able to get the police to commit to go back inside with me, but Penny was able to and the police showed up about half an hour later, Trevor and Michele, both of whom I've come to know well doing this work.

The specialist pediatric consultant showed us the x-rays on her computer and, since I've been in the medical field off and on since I was a teenager, I could clearly see that the baby had broken ribs. We estimated at that point plus or minus 9 fractures. The left arm, the fracture for which she was presented, was one of the worst breaks I've ever seen.

Trevor, Michele and I spoke with nursing staff, parents and extended family. I drafted an agreement for no unsupervised contact of any family with the baby and no attempts to remove her from the hospital either, which they signed. Left the hospital about 8:00.

The next day I finalized a foster placement for the baby (which I'd started on the day before) and did paperwork to establish her placement. The parents arrived downstairs in the Civic Centre, where I work, bringing car seat, comfort items and clothing as they knew she was going into foster care. Deborah, my team leader, and I talked to them about the agreeent and why it was best for both themselves and baby Scarlett.

Two police officers arrived, at which time I went back upstairs to get ready to go to the hospital and move the baby into her placement. Meanwhile, the parents were arrested and bail conditions were set - - basically what we'd agreed to in the prior night's written agreement plus no unsupervised contact with any children under 10.

I got up to the hospital about 5:30 and didn't get out of there with the baby until about 8. I fed her, changed her nappy, and waited for her discharge instructions. I brought the car seat up to her room to strap her into it, then carried her down and strapped her into my car. Which, I discovered at that point, did not have a dome light and I couldn't see what I was doing very well, but I strapped her in with the shoulder strap and wedged the front seat up against her car seat.

Off we went to the tiny village of Hawkinge, which is near Folkestone. It turned out to be a lovely home with a foster mum probably about my age, 2 Labradors (one golden and one black), and a 5YO girl with cerebral palsy who is one of the most beautiful children you could ever see - - besides baby Scarlett, that is. Scarlett managed the ride beautifully. She never does cry - - I fear it's because she's learned it doesn't help. She whinges a bit when she's hungry or needs a new nappy, but other than that she's perfectly happy and falls asleep as soon as you start her on a car ride.

Got home about 9ish, unloaded the car and realized I'd forgotten to have foster mum sign the required paperwork, so I went back the next morning and got that done. Needed to leave a copy of it with her anyway as it contains medical info.

Scarlett weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces at birth and was just over 11 pounds when she came into care. At that time we figured she'd had a fracture about once every 10 days - - alive for 90 days with 9 fractures. (I ran into another of the child abuse investigation unit police officers at the local home improvement store over the weekend and we talked about that figure.)

On Tuesday (we were off Monday) I learned that the baby had 12 fractures, not 9, and some were reinjuries - - i.e., they had callus formation, had either healed on their own or started to heal, and then been refractured. I learned that I had to supervise a parental visit, so I filled out paperwork to take to them (since we were going to court Friday) and we took separate cars to a neutral meeting point in Folkestone. I did NOT want them to have any opportunity to follow me into Hawkinge so I waited until they were well on their way before leaving - - the sat-nav took me a different route but it was still nervewracking. Especially since after I picked up Scarlett, I couldn't find the meeting place in Folkestone. I did get there eventually though and supervised the visit.

She was supposed to have visits Wednesday and Thursday but didn't - - foster mum had an appointment for her older child in London on Wednesday and took Scarlett with her, and Thursday the police were reinterviewing her parents when her visit was supposed to take place. OK for me as I actually got some other work done during this time - - had a strategy meeting for another case which is now going to conference in about 2 weeks. I also had a lot of paperwork to prepare for court.

Deborah and I were at court in Folkestone by 9:30 a.m. for a scheduled hearing at 10, which didn't happen until 1 - - which I'm well used to as far as delay in court hearings from Texas. I didn't end up having to testify as the parties came to an agreement long before our actual court time. The case is being transferred up to the county court, as the baby has such serious injuries, and will be heard next Wednesday. As of EOB Friday it was to be transferred to the long-term care team. I arranged supervised visits for next week and booked the room at the neutral meeting point in Folkestone for the next month.

I like going to court. Deborah is actually leaving our team and transferring to CAFCASS, which is a court advisory service, as she likes it too and wants to spend more time doing that. I can imagine following her there in due time. We had a chance to talk about why I was assigned to the duty team - - I told her I had not been consulted as to what type of team I wished to be placed in and she told me she'd never seen my CV. Talking to other Americans that came over when I did, it sounds like we were all slotted in on the basis of, well, we don't know. It's such a large county, whoever assigned us looks like they just put us where they thought the need was greatest and it was more or less of a fit. I haven't talked to any Americans who felt like "oh yeah, this is precisely what my experience suits me for." Even those who've had extensive CPS experience in the States, the procedures are very different over here. We've all had huge learning curves and are by no means at the bottom yet.

Next week I look forward to catching back up on other cases. First thing Monday I have a child protection conference. I have not even observed one of these yet, much less been the social services rep. My other team leader Andy is going with me. Fortunately it is an established process whereby there is a person whose job is to chair these conferences. I did have to go present the papers for the hearing on Thursday. My colleague Michael, to whom the case is going to be transferred on the long-term team, came with me, both as a learning exercise and so I wouldn't be going alone, as I warned him it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience, and indeed it wasn't. Suffice it to say that I emailed the conference chair after the home visit that if dad's mum showed up, I wanted her read the riot act and if she misbehaved at all she wasn't to be allowed to stay. The conference is for an unborn who is at serious risk from his dad, who is only 16 years old. We had a pre-birth planning meeting and when mum goes into labour, I'm to be called to be at the hospital. She's not to take the baby home to her partner, the unborn's dad. She's agreed to go live in Margate with her mum, but we will discuss all this at the conference and put the final plans in place. I did want to have the pre-birth planning meeting earlier in case she had preterm labour, which fortunately hasn't happened, but as she is only 18 that was a possibility.

Also I'll have a chance to catch up on the family that's going to conference soon. Will probably spend most of the day in Tunbridge Wells on Wednesday meeting up with family members, school, Health Visitor, etc.

There are some other cases that really need attention but the office is closed weekends. As time goes by I may do some weekend work, but then again, I already work late every night pretty much. The duty team are usually the last to leave the office.

This is what I came here for though and I'm not complaining at all. I feel blessed and privileged to be here. Catching a glimpse of the English Channel shimmering in the sunlight the other day as I crested a hill toward the M20 made up for all the ugliness to which I stand witness. Besides which, someone has to stand witness to it and I'm grateful to be someone who gets to do that.

Now I have my beloved cat, a car, my shipment, fast internet and a tight group of colleagues. Life is getting better every day!!!!!