So I’m finally up to date. Well sort of. I’m sitting on the train back to London after finishing work yesterday. I am now officially unemployed again (which in the light of the current economic crisis is not as comforting as it was last time I was in this situation!). Now that the work has ended I thought I could do a little reflective writing on my time at Cheltenham- yes this is a cop out to try and get properly up to date before I go on my next trip but like it or lump it!
Hopefully I can write this in what is not a totally rambling and confusing order- it has been know to happen! Surprised? Probably not.
OK, initially I admit I was pretty pensive about Cheltenham. It always sucks starting a new job and being the new girl, and frankly it was no different in that case. I was kind of lucky in a way when I started because about 2 or 3 weeks after I started a group of new grads started and I was not the new girl anymore. Suddenly I was checking films and telling them what to do (and I do love to be a bossy bum!). I think this definitely helped me settle in more quickly than I probably would have had I been the new crazy foreigner for longer. Sorry not foreigner- New Zealander apparently. I had been working in Cheltenham about 6 weeks and I was in the tea room at lunch one day and everyone was playing their favourite game “Let’s take the piss out of the Aussie and everything Australian- particularly her accent and the stupid way she says yogurt”. I said to my boss- ‘I should really come and complain to you about all the racist abuse I get here’; she said ‘why? Because you’re a New Zealander?’ She was being serious! She and a few others honestly thought I was from New Zealand even after I had been working there for at least 6 weeks and had spent 2 of them yelling at the television supporting the Aussies during the Olympics! Surely they would have cottoned on then that I wasn’t from New Zealand perhaps? Obviously not! Of course everyone else who was there thought that this was one of the funniest things that they had heard in forever and kept on telling me about it for days afterwards!
After all the new comers started as I mentioned, I really started to settle in, this too was perhaps due to the fact I was mainly rostered in A and E. The best thing, I think, about the new people starting (apart from the fact that we had more staff) was the fact that I suddenly had a social life. The first few weeks had been kind of quiet on that front and I was glad to have people to do things with. They are a social lot! Our main achievement was starting a prize-winning pub quiz team. Apparently it’s a pub quiz- not trivia- stupid Poms! Anyhow, our team named variously: ‘4 Poms and an Aussie’, ‘one less Pom and an Aussie’, and ‘2 new Poms and an Aussie’ to name a few of our more creative names, was absolutely brilliant. We of course were all highly intelligent and certainly didn’t try to cheat or message various friends or family for the answers. Our results over the weeks included not one single last place, and 2 thirds- one of which was on the mega pub quiz night. The mega trivia night was last Sunday, first prize was 250 quid and we were feeling pretty confident until they started asking the questions! Luckily the final picture round was all on James Bond movies and James (one of our team) is ridiculously obsessed with Bond- something to do with having the same name I think- and we got full marks! This turned a very dreadful night into a pretty good one. In picking up third place we got 3 bottles of wine, 2 t-shirts, a hat and a whole heap of mini rugby balls. Just rewards from my final quiz night!
Apart from our brilliant quiz team we also had a trip to the rugby in Gloucester. Five of us (the usual suspects) got tickets to a game on a Tuesday night between Gloucester and Newcastle. It was a first grade match and Johnny bloody Wilkinson was playing. Thankfully he didn’t have much of an impact on the game seeing as he got injured (as he usually does except when playing Australia) early on in the game. It was a good high scoring game and being in Gloucester the crowd was quite um…..militant. We stood in the shed which was very much like a mosh pit. It was so crowded and people yelled the whole game. It was a totally different experience as compared with watching the rugby in Australia. It was so much more passionate. The funniest part of the game was in the second half just after Gloucester score one of their tries. The crowd was silent (for once) waiting for the conversion. Straight after the guy kicked the ball when it was still in the air, crowd still silent, somebody yelled out to the guy “Nice arse”. About 1000 people burst out laughing, including the player. Got to love rugby supporters!
Also during the time I was at Cheltenham the boys decided to put together a five a side football team. I of course was their official ‘fan’ and went along every week to watch them lose miserably. The team, called c-digg city (it was supposed to be c-diff city but the organisers made a typo on the draw, hence the name being a bit- excuse the pun, shit. Another idea had been MRSA United), made up of radiographers and helpers were big on energy and keenness, unfortunately the skill levels didn’t quite match the enthusiasm. They did however have a very supportive ‘fan’. They have promised to keep me updated on their results and have certainly been improving so who knows? They might yet win one! Go Boys!
Well that’s about it for now, I’m not far from London now and have to get home for my next adventure (6am flight tomorrow!). I really, really enjoyed working in Cheltenham and will almost certainly go back there to work next year if I can. I already miss Ang, Ben and James and all the others even though they are a bunch of bloody Poms!
