Enniskillen 18/7/06

Were settling in nicely to Edinburgh, (sorted out housing, getting to know transport, layout and started making a few friends), we realised things weren't going too well on the work front. Gem was getting a few shifts, but they were mostly in Inverness (4 hrs on train). In fact in the 3 weeks we lived in the new place, Gem was home a total of 2 nights! Sara, competing with the hoards of uni students on holidays, and likeminded travellers settling in for the festival, got no work whatsoever. Gem's agency rang (while I was in Inverness - nice place by the way) asking if I would take a contract in Northern Ireland starting straight away. I quickly rang Sara and we made the rash decision to take it. Couldn't really understand my boss (he's Scottish) and told Sara we were moving to Inverkillen. Try as she might, she couldn't find anything about it on google. So we really had no idea what we were in for. Turns out we were moving to Enniskillen (still not too much on google about it) to work in a small hospital called The Erne. I am in ICU/HDU (6 beds in total) and Sara got an admin spot in day proceedure. The small country town is on an island in Loch Erne, and is 3 streets wide. Gem loves it coz she doesn't get lost! The hospital is fairly old and run down, and very small. We found ourselves humming the country practice themesong as we walked around. It is nice working in the same place every day, and having a roster after months of uncertain agency work. Although the work is not as technically challenging as the large city hospitals, I still mannage to keep pretty busy with the reams of paperwork they make us fill out. Every now and then, the place goes crazy when an unstable patient (particularly traumas and children) come in to get stablised for transfer.