Fallow Period

I have had a fallow period as Joe Blogs.

My life as Joseph the son, the husband, the homeowner and the employee has completely changed beyond recognition.

I lost both my parents within six months of each other, my employment had ended and so then did my marriage and home, all at the same time, all connected up, all without time to grieve and reflect.

I had written a version of this fallow period post in my mind a hundred times, each time more poignant and each time consigned to a future time which would feel more “right”.

There is no right time, there is a new normal and it is new and affects how I think and how I have become.

I have been Joe Blogs for over 11 years and I intend to continue, it has just been fallow lately for overwhelming reasons.  I could have written a blog about grief and bereavement, a blog about redundancy and retirement, a blog about divorce, a blog about moving home but the filters remained blocked. All of these issues are about loss.

I am informed by what I have gone through and I have bookended parts of my life and it isn’t as neat and tidy as the categories sound: the bereaved, the redundant, the divorced.

I have waited a while at the junction and now I am ready to proceed, Ive checked my rear view mirror a few times and it is safe to move forward now.

The ball in the box has become a little smaller and the pain is the same but less frequent, thanks to @LaurenHerschel for explaining grief as well and as simply as her Doctor explained it to her.

Lockdown has brought quite a few challenges which overwhelming loss has well prepared me for and the “new normal” is more like a modified newish normal for me.

Thank you.

E mail me, I will pay attention then.

I have noticed that the spoken word has lost it’s currency. Not in real life, person to person, but in work, organisations and all the times where communication happens and things matter. So to narrow the field I will give an example about work.

I still think the most important interaction is the spoken and listening one.

Let’s give an example of a role in the NHS which scores the highest points for Communications factor and a phrase I have used before; the humble Paramedic.

The most important part of the 999 call once the vehicle has arrived at the scene is the history taking, finding out what happened from the patient, the relatives, the actual caller, bystanders or anyone who was witness to the event that prompted the call.   Patients who are in pain can usually describe with a simple series of questions and answers some very comprehensive information which is relevant to any treatment and a diagnosis.

The onset…was it sudden or gradual?

The location of the pain……does it stay in the same place, radiate or move?

Intensity….. is it sharp, deep, dull ache, sporadic, throbbing, acute?

Positioning……….can changing position improve the pain or make it worse?

Then after the history taking the Health Professional establishes if the patient has ever experienced pain of this type before analysing the characteristics and informing the patient why a measurement method is required which in most health settings is a simple scale from one to ten to ask the patient to score their pain against.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           It is the basis of effective and appropriate treatment of the pain and the patient and puts the patient at the centre of the process.

The measurement of this effective process of communication in a job evaluation process is summarised as follows: “asks question about the pain and completes simple tick box”  and is never used to demonstrate skills in communication. The points that have been scored for the communication factor are a result of barriers to understanding that have to be overcome and highly complex information explained.

The HPC are the regulatory body responsible for the registration  of Paramedics.                     In their “Standards of Proficiency for Paramedics” document there are 9 bullet points about communication in all its forms regarding patients and only 2 bullet points about being “able to maintain records appropriately”. That doesn’t mean there is four times the emphasis from the HPC on communication or that record keeping is four times less important but it is telling how the Service has translated those standards into practice.        I asked a sample number of Paramedics if they knew the number of bullet points there were about communication and then the number about maintaining records and I was not surprised at the answer where every single one answered that they thought there would be huge emphasis on records and forms but less on communication.

Standards of Practice – Paramedics

A Paramedic who documents well, notes everything and files it well will never be struck off and will probably succeed. The Paramedic bible has a famous parable on page one: “If it isn’t written down then it didn’t happen”.                                                                                                                                                        That is why the follow up paperwork and attention to accuracy of patient report (clinical record) can often take longer than the call it refers to, increasing the call cycle time of vehicles and affecting performance as much as many of the other contributory factor often cited as reasons for delays (excluding the number one reason of queues outside A and E).

Well, e mail now seems to be the equivalent and many have lost sight of benefits of e mail. For “if it isn’t written down it didn’t happen”read”if it isn’t documented in writing in an e mail thread then it probably didn’t happen”. The emphasis has moved from verbal communication to written. I have personal experience of a debate where I was told “well you didn’t say that in your e mail” to which I responded “well I am saying it now so I am saying it” to which the response from unnamed was “well I’m only acting on what you said in the e mail” to which i said “I’m the author of the e mail and I am the speaker of the words, they are from the same source …..me”. This is an example of how there is a hierarchy of communication, verbal at the bottom of the pile, then e mail the everyday preferred form, a letter and finally the most important words are that duly noted at a meeting with published minutes.

1. The Chief mentioned that on the phone
2. The Chief was walking down the corridor just now and told me that
3. Ive received an e mail from the Chief about that
4. The Chief has written a letter about that
5. At the meeting the Chief had a slot and presented on that and it is minuted and published and will become policy

Because or in spite of my outspoken views on e mail I was privileged to be one of the two staff advisors at the NHS Partnership Forum Task group which authored the recent NHS E Mail Policy. Link here . My influence was taken into account rather than my words quoted. I think the abuse of e mail is complex and varied, the sheer numbers of unnecessary e mails, the presentee-ism, constant checking and flicking on e mails, people e mailing people sat opposite them in the same office or down the corridor on issues that could be better conveyed in a short chat, the reply all to prove that you have read the e mail, the “me too” agreers who reply all with “me too”, sending the wrong attachments or forgetting to attach the attachment at all and 100 other known and unbeknown abuses in e mails name. None of these things are in the policy and are beyond good e mail etiquette.

I remember an e mail which read “Will the person who owns the blue Volvo in the Staff car park please return to it as you’ve left your lights on”, it turned out this e mail was accidentally sent to 80,000 e mail addresses and crashed the NHS server for hours. Someone replied to all. Disaster. Promise it wasn’t me.

I could write a post three times as long as this one about how Twitter has made e mail virtually redundant for some who are leaders on it and relegated whole swathes of people to declare “Twitter, yes I’m on it but I just don’t get it”. These are the same people who haven’t quite got e mail over the past twenty odd years, no surprises there then.

There is a place for e mail and I see its place but in currency terms it is vastly overvalued.

I have been approached by some very clever people who are creating training courses as part of a suite of modules that will help leaders and others gain confidence in communication. There will be an e mail section and I have agreed to review the final version in a critical friend capacity. It was the tortuous and laborious amount of time I spent contributing to and importantly preventing some content and views from colleagues dominating the NHS group and the document we created that has given me the experience to have been asked. It has been something  that I have stated a number of times that “emails sent to you as part of a large distribution list requiring no action on your part, there is no need to reply to them at all”. In other words, if you agree there is no need to answer Reply All. Full stop. I will ensure that when I am able to assist others with training content I persuade them to include some of these as basics.

I will not be writing about NHS related matters on many future posts and as always welcome comments to this blog post as always but will not publish comments.

I will be pleased to receive e mails too but far prefer if you talk with me.

Thanks.

All Blogged Out

 

For a short while I was all blogged out. A nearby colleague had decided to plagiarise  elements of this blog and when I asked politely was there any scope in them changing or modifying their new blog or working together so I could assist in freshening up their blog in a more original way I was shocked at the response. That and a busy time in general the last post that was left hanging at the front of my blog was the one written the day after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Ironic…..(last post).

When I am asked to assist others in Social Media and aspects of blogging invariably someone will ask one of the golden chestnut questions. “How often should I blog as a rule?” is about the most common of those that arises at the Social Media Surgery that I now manage in Cardiff for charity. There is no answer to that as there is no rule but the internet is full of frequency and content tips for bloggers and my response is always to blog when you feel that you need to. I am also very aware that there are blogs about blogs and blogging.

I have only ever been blocked by one person on Twitter, he didn’t realise that I was also following him on a different account that I manage which he didn’t block and he was stealing my tweet content, slightly rewriting them as his own, obviously thinking that I would never know.

 
Joe Blogs
‏@ConaghanJoseph
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, at what point is plagiarism flattering?

People must think their copying goes unnoticed

Ha!

Both of the issues I worried a little about have been resolved now, I can blog with the same fervour and enthusiasm that I saw in the new bloggers who I was recently advising.             Be authentic, be yourself and keep your passion to share with readers far and wide was my advice to them during my fallow period. About time I started to practice what I preached.

I Don’t Want To Go Forward To The Past

(I Want To Go Back To The Future)

Like around 16.1 million others I awoke on Friday 24th June 2016, bewildered, astounded and profoundly saddened at the EU referendum result to leave, the detailed outcomes and what was soon to be the consequences that my fellow citizens had unleashed on the United Kingdom based on lies, innuendo and speculation.

There are 100 things that could be said that are wrong, that were worrying and manifested before during and especially after polling day. I will focus on a few only as the chain of events unleashed since Friday is filling up every space the internet can cram it all into.

The country I loved has changed overnight, the people I would have always trusted and respected as a default have made me question that approach and I have made a decision to be more discerning with every person I interact with. I don’t want to go forward into the past, I want to go back to the future, the future we were about to embark on as a country.

 

• The murder of Jo Cox, she must never be forgotten. A statue in her honour should be prominently displayed in Westminster for all to be aware of her life and her work. When the British Constitution books of the future are written I believe that students should know what happened to her and why.
• The racism and casual references to immigrants and negative connotations linking crime, terrorism and world war three to people who are our neighbours, our friends, relatives and in my case my own parents.
• The young people, the 16-18 year olds who didn’t get a vote at all unlike in the Scottish Independence referendum, and the 18-24 year olds of which 75% of them voted to remain.
• The lies: all of the money we would be getting back to spend on the NHS, the Turkish people flooding in when they  join the EU, the trade agreements that we can make because “they need us more than we need them” and the lies, damn lies and statistics, resulting in a leave campaign where experts were dismissed as gloom merchant stick in the muds who should be ignored. Then the 90% of press reporting.
• The behaviour and attitude of politicians who put their own party and their electoral opportunities before the good of the country, posturing, evading, scaremongering on an unprecedented scale both disingenuous and in some cases cruel. The oxygen of publicity given to hatred, liars, apologists and racism by foreign owned newspapers, bitter political editors (one in particular), hidden agendas and weak know it alls.

 

I can’t see a progressive future for the country with hatred and division being sanctioned, young peoples’s views being ignored, finger in the air see which way the wind blows politics rather than a determined plan of action. Since when did our vision become based on “well we’ll see what happens shall we?” Since when did we arrive at a point where many people couldn’t care how much regret and pain these events would cause?

We have allowed ourselves to be caught up in a nightmare, led by people at the front (not leaders) chanting “I want my country back”. What are they talking about?

A country that sat within the world of division and hate, the Berlin Wall still standing with countries run by Communist Dictators and the U.K. on the other side of that wall, Apartheid regime in South Africa with Nelson Mandela still in prison and our Government doing deals with the oppressive regime, Northern Ireland and the troubles with all of the atrocities that we never thought would come to an end or a different type of country back. The country of the Coronation, the Festival of Britain , the Swinging Sixties, village fetes and long hot summers. That isn’t the same childhood I had being the son of two immigrant parents, for although we had lovely tolerant friends and neighbours and lived in a wonderful place, there was often an ignorant bigoted comment, but as the European relationship improved so did life for my family improve, but let’s not paint a picture that I heard recently (which I will paraphrase) of “let’s get back to the days of those nice immigrants we used to have, not these sponging terrorist types we have these days”.

Get real shall we.

We had a vision that the world saw at the opening ceremony of the Olympics less than four years ago, a progressive tolerant nation, one that extolled the virtues of our diversity and inclusive practical approach to disability and equality, not just tolerance but celebration.

I want that country back, the United Kingdom that held hands with the rest of the world, we are a forward thinking nation who has instantly gone from standing in the front row of the family photograph, being at the main table for the family decisions, and one of the central players in the biggest economic and political union in the world to be out the back with the empties in one fell swoop. The genie can never be put back in the bottle.

I feel that we have lost something precious that can’t now be replaced. My passport was British and European Union and that was how I identified myself, a British member of the European Union. My family are still members of the European Union but I am not.

I’m not a sore loser but I admit we’ve lost much more than we’ll ever know and yes, it hurts.

I’m thinking that it must be love

It’s too late to be grateful.

 

I thought that starting 2016 was going to be the anti climax that  was promised following the long Christmas and New Year break, I was going to fight against that as I had a few days leave to take and some plans to execute. I was feeling more positive than I had for a while. One of the things I had read about back in October was that David Bowie was to release a new album on January 8th and to watch the official website for a single and a video before Christmas and a musical show called Lazarus, being a huge fan all of my life I knew that this would be a pick me up in the same way that The Next Day was. It wasn’t.

The November Blackstar video was disturbing and intriguing in equal measure.                    The blindfold with sewn buttons an image that lingers and challenges.

Then the January 7th video for Lazarus showed the blindfold again.

I didn’t have a chance to discuss what I thought or hear what others thought of the repeat appearance of this striking image before we awoke to news that David Bowie had died.

For those of us who grew up in the early seventies it cannot be overstated the huge passion David Bowie elicited in those of us who “got it”. It didn’t matter that there was a transition from glam to plastic soul to electronic and new romantic genres within a nine year period, the period that coincided with my formative years, a period that many people in their fifties are reflecting upon.

In the days after his death it is clear that there are plenty of people who don’t “get it.”

My favourite David Bowie story is about the concert on Christmas Eve 1972 at London’s Rainbow Theatre. It was sold out, desperately the management had tried to run an additional concert the day before but this had failed to materialise. In an advert in the music papers the audience were requested to bring a toy which would be donated for children in Dr. Barnardo’s homes. The significance of this request was that David Bowies’s father who passed away three years before was a P.R. Officer for Dr. Barnardo’s. There is an account that they filled a huge vehicle up with toys from fans and that on Christmas Day they were driven around Dr. Barnardo’s homes in London and given to children.

David Bowie was delighted .

Whichever period of Bowie’s music I now listen to, I remember the two concerts I saw and I reflect on all the joy his music has given me. It’s not too late to say thanks.

Belonging

Having recently attended a number of work events where I have both facilitated and attended workshops that have looked at equality, LGBT, working longer in the NHS and team based solutions, one of the themes that has emerged is how we interact with each other, with our fellow workers, our teams and even what we call each other collectively.
I believe the most used term for what we call each other in the NHS is “colleagues”, but I have heard various other terms used such as “team members”, “workforce” and raised an eyebrow when someone suggested that “the workforce” are people “from work” and lots of debate ensued once agreement couldn’t be reached about what “staff” or “employees” were like as individuals in work and out of work.
A huge subject.
I suggested that as some of “our people” refer to themselves as “colleagues” then maybe we should too.
I often refer to colleagues as “our people” and I believe these are terms and actions which encourage a sense of belonging.

I have explained that from the get go we are “members” of things.
We start as babies and children as the newest member of the family.
Then we go to school and become a member of the class (called a pupil).
Then we sing in the choir and become a member.
If we join a band we are a band member.
We grow up and vote and become a member of the public.
We get a job and are the new member of staff.
A member of the profession.
If encouraged and asked we could become a member of a self organised group or network.
If we join a trade union we become a member and get a membership card.
If we stand for election to become a member of parliament, we would have the initials of M.P. and designate which party we are a member of.
We then can join a club or a society and get a membership card.

All of this is a lifetime of the urge and practice of belonging.
This belonging becomes more important when there is a dent to someones self esteem and confidence often due to a period of sickness and coming back to work. As we are members of more than one of the above at any one time we may rely on the family, the trade union or the self organised group to help ease the recovery to get to the point of returning to work.
We must encourage “colleagues” to be welcoming and enhance the feeling of belonging when we return, we must start to think of each other in work as “our people” and “us”. We are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain and if we are going to challenge behaviours and get the best from our people we need to make the weakest link stronger amongst all of us.

The Bedroom Door

I have been attending conferences at various ( mostly seaside ) places all around the UK for over 25 years. It is a part of the role of representative that I had at first taken on when other colleagues weren’t that bothered to attend, and then as a deputy for others who couldn’t attend and then as time moved on as an active participant.

The first conference I attended as a representative of the branch, then the region and for the past 15 years the profession itself. It is a privilege I have been grateful for and never wasted.
In Trade Union circles the conference is considered the high church of democracy as all of the Union’s rules are made there.

It was at one of these conferences about 20 years ago on the first day in a very familiar seaside town that I accidentally bumped into one of my best friends who is also a Paramedic. We trained together in the mid 1980’s on a very long residential course and we got to know each other well. The end of the previous course before we arrived for ours had been fraught and one student had taken his own life on the last day. The details were kept from us the students scheduled on the next course but it soon emerged that investigations were ongoing and we were being watched and surveyed very closely.
Visiting tutors had taken the place of the resident team and they were as perplexed with what was happening there as we were but something was happening there. The quasi militarisation of elements such as rank insignia, peak caps, boot polish, marching around the square and inspection parades were not what was happening in the wider Service but was paramount in this place and as oppressive as any Army may have faced.
It was like National Service but all the students there wanted to do was learn to care.

They would say things like
” if you are treating an old lady, take your cap off out of respect”

It didn’t take long for us to actually find out the details of the sadness and cruelty of the suicide that overshadowed every moment of our course even though it was never reported in the papers, there were no mobile phones and it was pre-Internet times nearly 30 years ago.

Needless to say my colleague from miles away and I became close friends. We were both born of immigrant parents who had worked hard and there were quite a few parallels in our lives.

My friend and I kept in touch in a very loose manner over the years, meeting up at an anti apartheid March in London, arranging to be side by side at a momentous event during the National Ambulance Dispute but on this occasion even though I was in his town we hadn’t made any arrangement to meet we just bumped into each other.
He was in the Ambulance, he wound down the window as I walked along the pavement and whispered “what are you doing here then?” We quickly arranged to meet the following evening for a drink and spent a few hours catching up.

I could tell as the evening progressed that my friend had changed and was a little uncomfortable about some things we discussed especially what our initial training course was like.

He then said a phrase I will never forget
“Joe, there still some jobs that come through the bedroom door.”

I knew exactly what he meant and could identify with this assessment. I had struggled to explain how intrusive thoughts had ruined many a nights sleep, how just at the point of dropping off in the moment between sleep and wake ( the sheepskin curtain ) I had been jolted by an image related to a call I may have attended years previously. In one phrase my friend had described what I had always shied away from fully conveying to anyone and in such a way that I intuitively knew what he meant.

I won’t go into the specific job troubling him but there was also an incident that had caused him restless nights and overall his mental health was not in the best place. We talked through into the small hours as we sat together knowing that we were both in an ultra safe zone.
That is why I won’t say which town, which year, which friend has actually coined this phrase. He knows that I have used it since that day. He knows that I have spoken up nationally about mental health, occupational stress and how specifically it affects Paramedics and how in one simple phrase people can visualise the metaphor. I am so grateful to him for his clarity.

A Paramedic’s Guide To Reduced Stress

There are hundreds of self help books, articles and web pages dedicated to the pursuit and maintenance of a stress free existence. They often can have the most generic and broad brush remedies for a healthy well being and some of them are really good for some people.
However for those who have a job where the innate sixth sense needed and utilised in the working day ( recognising illness, reading examining and understanding people’s needs and pursuing a course of action to help them ) permeates through into all other angles of their own lives sometimes there is a need for a recognition that however well intended the author of a self help book or article may be, it’s going to need a deep reach to conquer some of the stresses that can be faced by a Paramedic who daily treats and cares for people who may be at the most extreme raw state they’ve ever felt in their life. The Paramedic will suppress their own feelings of stress to enable others to feel confident enough to open up and pour out and spill their anxiety and symptoms: invariably the Paramedic’s stress will sometimes manifest in issues and behaviour traits that although can be spotted and brought to revelation by eagle eyed colleagues may even be missed by those close to the person. Recognition is difficult if the Paramedic is in a form of denial about the level of stress they are experiencing at the time.

Of course as I write I am acutely aware of the issue of Paramedic stress not only because in my role I am contacted by people needing help on the subject but I have experienced it myself.
I am struck by the sadness of a colleague who was discovered deceased by colleagues at the Ambulance Station she worked from in the East Midlands this week upon returning from her holiday with her young family.

The days when anyone working in the Service can actually say in words out loud where others could hear ” it’s part of the job” or “you must have known when you signed up, what did you expect?” have virtually gone away for good and we need to be aware that the support we give to people is sporadic and inconsistent and needs clearer focus and much further work.

This is from a previous blog post on this site that I wrote in February 2014

“As a Service there is unwritten and unsaid concerns that we are not doing enough to help Staff who are facing stress. We could and should do more to avoid Crews being over exposed to any aspects of work that would cause stress, anxiety or anger as there is enough of that within the 999 calls that they do. The sickness policies of most Ambulance Trusts either do not include the word “stress” at all or have a single sentence that states that “cases of stress must be referred to Occupational Health Departments”. That’s on paper. However in practice there are some measures in place which may be limited but are a start.

1. Colleague Support – system of limited training to colleagues/contemporaries/buddies who are the first port of call when a member of staff makes a request that they wish to seek confidential help and do not mind sharing their issues with a trusted colleague.

2. Confidential Counselling – contract with a trained professional who can help over 4 or 5 sessions with major traumatic issues.

3. Critical Incident Debriefing – following a major incident or serious case involving multiple casualties

4. Professional Intervention – in the event of referral following confidential counselling or debriefing session
That is why we need to do more straight away.
It seems clear that “traditional” solutions do not always capture and assist every person.

I will be writing postings on this site over the next few weeks which will cover paragraphs on the following:

The uniform

The bedroom door

Drastic

The SO

Humour

Networking

Belonging

With particular regard to two future posts
1. The Olympics and which sport a Paramedic has held the gold medal since Berlin 1936?

2. Stop whispering, start roaring.

I feel that Medics know what they need to help improve well being and reduce stress, whilst wearing their uniform or resting. The factors that reduce stress ( or stressors ) are all around us.

A Leaning on a Lamp post

This appeared on a lamp post in London.
The Metro newspaper has reported on it.

Check Out this Radio Remodel ( I have nearly completely recovered….sic)

When I was in hospital for two weeks during last Christmas and New Year and started to recover I asked that the recently acquired DAB radio I had bought in a junk shop be brought in with my super hi-fi headphones. The last few days of recovering to a level well enough for the consultant to allow me to go home were made at least tolerable by listening to BBC 6 Music and keeping in touch with what was happening in the world as I was in a bubble and needed to re-acclimatise with the world I was about to rejoin.
The radio had cost £18:00 from a junk shop I had parked near when I was working a long way from home was pastel pink in finish but I knew it was quite a recent model of the Roberts RD60 range with both DAB and FM with stereo output to headphones or jack. I knew it would sound OK, the owner of the shop said that the pink “leather” look vinyl finish was decomposing, he was quite apologetic in fact. I asked him to try it as I was so far away and as soon as I heard it play I bit his hand off to buy it.

Thus the project that I never thought I would get around to undertaking had begun. On my discharge from the ward one of the Doctors had said to me that I would have to find something very simple and low impact to be doing during my recovery and should seek out convalescence. She said that recovery from the type of pneumonia I had suffered from would take up to six months to get over and that I needed to spend my time wisely. I immediately showed her the DAB radio with the flaking decomposing pink finish and said I might recover that in a new material as it sounded so good.
I also said that if I went to visit Brighton to stay and see my daughter then I could bring it with me and do it whilst I convalesced there.

The trip to Brighton, my recovery and then the whole convalescence thing became very symbolic for me. I had to do it, I was determined that the illness was not going to beat me even though I was having a lot of set-backs and impediments to recovery. The refurb of the radio was going to symbolise my transition from being ill but being aware of everything that happened to me to making a recovery and literally the recovering ( or recovery ) of the radio would align with my progress.

On good days when I was still in pyjamas in the daytime but having a few minutes on the internet I planned what fabric I was going to use to cover the radio. I first thought of the moquette type fabric that was used on London Underground Tube trains during the 1930’s a sort of linear art deco design but it can only be purchased from the transport museum in central London making up a cushion for £30:00 so I thought that defeated the spirit of what I was trying to achieve. I would wreck a £30:00 cushion to make an £18:00 radio look good and would have spent £48:00 in the process. I also considered the fabric on the front of Vox guitar amplifiers for the front and a vinyl amplifier covering called Tolex for the rear but worked out that it is both costly and the vinyl is too thick to manipulate around corners. I mentioned the “project” to my daughter the Product Designer and she said she had some waste leftover prince of wales black and white check that she had got from a recycling shop called Shabitat.

I also had some photo’s online for reference of other people who had suffered the interminable Roberts peeling radio syndrome and even understand that in many cases Roberts were replacing the faulty finished radios as the bad publicity was harming their well earned reputation (including By Appointment status….imagine if the Queens radio started peeling). However I wanted to do this myself not just send the radio in a box to Roberts, besides I didn’t have an original receipt and it was a happy find in the junk shop.

So I went to Brighton to have 3 or 4 days convalescence with my eldest in her new flat which is in a super location apart from the double yellow lines everywhere.
When I was alone in the flat in Brighton (Hove actually) ……that’s our in joke….the flat is in Hove (actually) but is closer to Brighton railway station than it is to Hove, so I can now bore anyone senseless with the “Hove actually” joke……yes, when I was alone in the flat I would contemplate starting the removal of the pink (cheap) vinyl covering and start the job.

Below you can see how far I have got with it…..it is not fully finished, it is not fully recovered. It works and it sounds good and from some angles it looks great, however there is still a little way to go. The radio has changed it’s appearance and has been refreshed, remodelled all because of a recovery.