Doctor Who

Hooray, hooray, for the wonderful Doctor Who! Over the last few months, thanks to BBC iPlayer, I have repeatedly watched a load of episodes starring the wonderful David Tenant, Billie Piper, Catherine Tate… fantastic! The scripts, special effects, corny jokes… brilliant! Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen… all just superbly excellent. Thanks to Russell T. Davies and company, it’s all great stuff.

Being single is rubbish

Having been an increasingly reluctant “serial monogamist” through most of my adult life, I have found the last year of being single yet again particularly depressing. Each relationship dissolves or collapses after anything from a few months to two or three years, and I often have to spend at least a year recovering and building up my confidence again. Apart from anything else, this is exhausting. I guess it’s some consolation that a lot of people are in the same boat these days.

What really pisses me off is that I seem to have less and less of a clue as to how to stop this happening – I’m not getting any younger. For a long time I’ve been very aware of the many issues from my messy childhood, and how these may obviously have set unhealthy patterns or fears about commitment. I believe I have dealt with these to the best of my ability – I have been up for long-term commitment for ages now – but it just doesn’t work out. Incompatibility of one kind or another seem to rear its head every time. Perhaps I am over-sensitive in some ways, but knowing that doesn’t seem to help.

Moan, moan, moan! I wouldn’t mind so much if I had some family support but there’s often not been much going on there either (only child, severely troubled soul for a mother, often unsupportive father, you get the idea… lovely stepmother though!). Thank God for my wonderful friends, they really help keep me alive. Astrologically, perhaps I’ll feel better when Saturn has moved away from my 7th house Moon next month.

Working with the homeless

Over the last couple of months most of my agency shifts have been for the local council at various projects for the homeless. It’s okay, although like much social care and care work, it is often frustrating and tedious rather than “rewarding”. There are exceptions to this of course and one can always just try to be a genuinely kind person, regardless of how disturbed, stoned or aggressive people may be. Despite everything, most human beings respond to a bit of basic kindness and respect. There are some good people working with the homeless who really care.

As with psychiatric nursing, the reality is that some of the individuals you are dealing with are too badly damaged for anyone to really make much long-term difference to their life quality. Many are simply past caring. Alcohol or heroin or other substances have often taken over, and some are continually in and out of prison for one reason or another. Perhaps I am being overly cynical here and would see it differently if I was involved in keyworking and not just a temporary agency worker. Unfortunately, I suspect not. On the other hand, as with psychiatric nursing, a few do make real progress in recovering and are able to make the most of the help that is on offer. (Soon after writing this blog, I bumped into a very likeable ex-psychiatric patient who I’d worked with, a gifted young man who has made almost a total recovery, and he was full of praise for how much he’d been helped by staff at the NHS psychiatric hospital.)

On Monday I played the part of a tramp in an episode of BBC drama ‘Criminal Justice’, filmed in London and due to be shown in September. All I had to do was stagger around a bit in the background and remember the general state of the people in these hostels where I’ve been working!