Work, Work, Work

I’m really enjoying work at the moment.  I was thinking about this today, as I sat in a meeting where they were telling us how we’re all (probably) going to get our jobs re-classified.  As far as I can tell, this means we’ll get paid more money for doing the same thing, which is entirely fair enough, as radiographers in this State are currently badly undervalued.  We are the lowest paid radiographers in Australia.  

The usual argument for this is that the cost of living is lower.  It used to be, but has pretty much caught up with the other states.  It’s much the same now as in England, in that newly qualified radiographers can’t afford the mortgage on an averaged priced home.  It’s just that an average home here is much bigger. And only one storey high.  And made of wood, plasterboard, and a bit of superglue.

Anyway, in this meeting, I realised that I haven’t been all that bothered about the fact I’ve been given a role very similar to my Clinical Tutor job back in Manchester, but am being paid 2 grades lower than I was.

I still enjoy radiographing people, and there’s lots of it to do.  The people I work with are, on the whole a great laugh, pleasant and interesting.  I’ve always enjoyed training students, so it’s great to be heading that up again.  I’m also in charge of Continuing Professional Development.  That’s new to me, and a bit scary.  I’ve been given a blank slate really, the role is mine to run with to see what I can squeeze out of it.  It’s all a bit nebulous and airy.  At least when you’ve got an x-ray request card in your hand, you know exactly what is expected of you, and get instant feedback on if you’ve done a good job or not.

We are rostered (on the roster, which I prefer to call a ‘rota’, which is what we called it in Manchester, although I can see the benefit of ‘roster’ when you come to try to make a verb of it in the past tense - it’s easy to say someone was rostered somewhere, but rota-ed? roterd? rota’d?) in shift groups of about 6, who you work with all the time unless you are doing a side job for some of the rota/roster like me.  Mine is a really nice group, all.  We’re making efforts to be more sociable too.  We’ve been 10-pin bowling (I came last. Twice. I think there are different gyroscopic forces in the southern hemisphere), had a Barbie, and have plans for monthly pub visits.

I really like the shift pattern too.  Never a fan of routine, it’s nicely varied in a repeating kind of way.  I do 5 daytime shifts, weekend off, 7 daytime shifts, then Monday - Wednesday off, then 7 PM’s (15:30-23:30), with 4 days off after.  Sometimes the 7 PM’s are replaced by 7 nights, but at only 7 and half hours long, they are a piece of cake compared to the 12 hours I did at MRI.  

It’s still a long way to get there. I currently cycle 9 km to the train station, where I have to buy my bike a childs ticket to cramp up in a corner way to small for me, the bike and the 3 commuters who are worried about me getting oil on their suits to stand in for the 45 minute journey.  I’ve become very adept at sleeping, reading or listening to my ipod in various contorted positions.  Still, I’m glad we live where we do, as it’s near the better beaches, the hills and the wineries.

What's in a name?

Owen has an assembly parents can attend on Monday mornings.  They sing the Australian national anthem (I'm still uncomfortable having to stand up for it) and, much more entertainingly, classic children's Christian songs we used to sing at Pathfinder camps when I was a young teen.  'I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N', the J-O-Y song, and the arky-arky all get a run out, with actions.  I try not to perform them too enthusiastically, so as not to embarrass Sharon.  And they don't sing the cheeky verse in Arky-Arky about the animals who went in two by twosey-twosey coming out three by threesey-threesey.

Owen's teacher, Miss Cummings, usually does the singing with her huge, tuneful voice. However, when she is off sick, the music teacher takes over. And the name of the music teacher?

Mrs Chorus.

No, I'm not kidding.  That's the best one I've heard since the Chiropodist we used to have in Burnage called Mr Sillitoe.

Whilst we're on the subject, the other day I x-rayed a bloke called Polek Curten.  He pointed out his comedy name when you say his surname first.  

I was caught out hook, line and sinker when I first worked at Manchester Royal by one of the comedy fake request cards we used to make.  I went into the waiting room and shouted full blast for, 'Dan Sinqueen.  Can I have Dan Sinqueen please.'

Our local florist always make me chuckle though.  Austin Flowers. Along with an ace number plate on their car.

My sister, the hero

On her way home from a hard days work recently, our Rebecca was disturbed to find 100,000 Rangers fans rioting in city centre Manchester, following the UEFA cup finals and Manchester City Council's inability to find a big telly that worked.

She got chatting to a young man who had lost his phone, his mates, and his knowledge of where to catch his bus home to Glasgow.

Now at this point I'd have said...well, I'd have muttered...well, to be honest, I'd have avoided talking to him at all.  But Rebecca is more kindhearted and fearless than I am.  So what did she do?  Offered him a place to stay for the night.  The poor lad was from a rural area and clearly traumatised by the violence he'd seen, and very grateful for the help.

Mum told us about this, Sharon told her friend about it, who spoke to someone else we all know who had seen a letter in the Manchester Evening News from a grateful Glaswegian dad, thanking "Rebecca and her family in Burnage", who told Sharon's friend, who told my Mum! 

It doesn't surprise me that they hadn't spotted it themselves.  Every night after tea, Mum falls asleep with the paper on her knee.  If you try to take it off her, she wakes up and says, "I was reading that".  Oh aye.

Just goes to show: news travels fast and far and back again; and acts of kindness are still appreciated in this world.

Nice one Becca bonce.

Strewth!

A great contributor to the English Language

As Australians speak English, differences in language take a while to notice, and can still sometimes suprise us. Robert and Owen already refer to 'heaps' of things, instead of 'lots' of things, and they will tell you that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Maze (or whatever it's called) was 'heaps good'. They also ask for 'Yo-ghurt'. Crisps are 'chips'. Chips, in case you were worried, are 'hot chips'. By the way, don't 'mither' an Aussie for any 'scran' as all you'll get in response to either word is a blank look.

It's also essential to shorten words wherever possible, with the letter 'o' at the end. Need to register your car? You need Rego. Need to fill your car with petrol? That'll be done at the Servo. On Tuesdays, when it is inexplicably cheaper. Fancy a beer after that? You need the bottle-o. Thats what they call off-licenses here. They have drive-through ones. You can't buy alcohol in supermarkets, but that's ok, because you don't have to get out of your car to purchase your carton of Coopers Pale Ale.

What has been difficult to get used to, and avoid joining in with, is the swearing. Pi** and Sh** can be heard throughout the day on radio and television, and seem to be considered much softer words here. I nearly dropped my cup of Lipton's Tea when Aunty Susan, my Mum's cousin who is about her age, said 'Sh**'. Gordon Ramsey, who called a French chef the 'C' word on telly the other week, is broadcast at 8:30pm, early enough for little Bruce or Kylie to learn just how to speak aggressively in the kitchen. Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares is in the top 5 most watched TV programmes here.

What brought all this to mind was the Sermon I heard at Trinity Bay yesterday. John Warner, the Minister, was talking about how we can kid ourselves that it's so much harder to resisit Sin than it used to be. 'Friends, I'm here to tell you that's Bollocks,' piped up John, without a flicker or flush of embarrassment, 'Paul says that's Bollocks...'. Whilst slowly closing my agape jaw I looked around to see everyone elses reaction. Nothing. A yawn here, a stretch there, but certainly it wasn't controversial.

So there you have it. Bollocks in the Bible. It's the only place in there you'll find it!

No wonder they win the Olympics

Robert and Owen had their Sports Day at the end of last term. It wasn't how I remembered Sports Day. For starters, they started their day with an inspirational talk from a genuine Olympian (I forget who she was) and a chance to hold the actual olympic torch from the Sydney Olympics. All we had to motivate us was earning house points for Hillary, Chichester, Scott or Churchill. Ooh.

The sports themselves, as well as the usual sack race and egg and spoon race, were proper athletics events. The school was divided into 4 teams of different colours. Siblings were put in the same teams, Robert and Owen in the greens. Parents, teachers and children all really threw themselves into it.

And the main difference? None of this namby pamby, "it's the taking part that counts". It was all good natured and a lot of fun, but make no mistake; they were all trying to win.

Brass Monkies

Autumn is setting in here which, to our sensitive Northern Hemisphere sensibilities, is a bit strange.  It does feel like it should be Autumn, but it doesn't feel like it should be May.  There are lots of European trees around to go brown and red to make us feel at home.  The photo above is from Hahndorf, Australia's oldest German settlement, where the main street is lined with trees like this.  There's even a brochure giving the route of a tour around the hills just to soak in the colours.

At the same time as going cooler, there's been quite a lot of rain, so suddenly all the scenery that was browny-yellow is green, and flowers are starting to bloom. You can smell autumn, but it smells of spring at the same time too.

Our house has only one built in heater/cooler, which is fine for the main living area, but means the bedrooms are freezing at night.  Especially our bedroom, which has 2 walls to the outside.  Houses here are generally pretty flimsy compared with the UK's.  It's very unusual for the actual structure to be made of brick.  They're usually a wooden or steel frame with a brick veneer.  Nobody has double-glazing.  In fact, lots of people have genuinely never heard of double glazing.  To be fair, it will only get as low as 5 degrees C in winter, so there's not much call for it.  

So, in response to the chilly weather, we did what any good group of Taylor's would do: went to the beach.  With my mum's eternal phrase "I've sat on beaches in worse weather than this..." ringing in my ears, we decided to drive to the beach which is the very closest to our house.  We hadn't bothered with O'Sullivan's Beach before as it's next to an oil refinery.  I had visions of oil covered birds and washed up plastic containers, like they always seemed to have on John Craven's Newsround, just before the final article about how Pee-Pee the Panda moved one leg slightly towards Ding-dong from Beijing zoo, who they were trying to mate it with.

It's actually a great beach, with sand dunes ace for doing stunts on, and choppy seas that produce a foam which Robert and Owen spent a good hour chasing.

All we needed to make it the full Taylor beach experience was a picnic in blue plastic boxes from Dad's work, an orange, yellow and blue windbreak, and Dad's turquoise trunks, which he must have worn each year for at least 20 years.  Maybe next time.

Things that are different in Adelaide #1

South Australia is the only state in Australia in which Coca-Cola is not the top-selling soft drink. 'What could outsell the mighty Coke?', I hear you ask. What has managed to penetrate the public's consciousness more than the world dominating corporation, one of the most recognisable brands in the world? Another Cola? A power drink? The elixir of life?

No. It's cold coffee.

Farmer's Union Iced Coffee, to be precise.

Available in light, regular, Mocha and Extra Strong, South Australians sup on this like no other drink. Everyone has it. Workmen, Doctors, housewives, business execs, it's all pervading. Goodness knows why. Hot coffee in whatever form you like it - Flat white, Soy Latte, Long Macchiato etc. - is widely available everywhere you go, the espresso machine having been as much the norm as in Italy here for ages.

I've tried one, at the insistance of my colleagues and in the interest of soaking in the culture. The verdict? It's alright. Just a bit, erm, well, cold. Personally I'm not into milky drinks, so I'm not the best qualified to comment.

So instead, I just enjoy the fact that the world isn't completely homogonised by the big brands, and order a cappucino.

http://www.farmersunion.com.au/