Friends will be friends.

05 Nov 2023 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

I have not written in my blog for 14 months. I have not long completed my module to be an independent nurse prescriber and that took up most of my time between January and July, the need to write clinically and critically would have been hampered by any kind of creative writing. I’m not exactly sure though what prevented me from writing posts for the first half of the blog writing freeze. But I haven’t been loitering around, I’ve been on lots of adventures so I have plenty to write about now I have the opportunity.

For this post I’m going to pick up where I left off 14 months ago. In a long queue, slowly snaking through London on the way to see a much loved queen lying in state, 7 strangers became friends and the 2 am club was born. 2 am was the time we predicted we would get into Westminster Palace when we formed our WhatsApp group. After we had paid our respects to her majesty we vowed to try and keep in touch and meet up whenever we could.

In September on the anniversary of that day, 3 of the members of the 2 am club were able to meet up. Sharon, Amy and myself met in a very sunny Covent Garden and had a lovely lunch in the Ivy, mooched around and generally catching up on a years worth of gossip and news. Then ended with cocktails in Piccadilly before Amy and Sharon headed home and I retired to my hotel for the night. It was such a fabulous afternoon and hopefully in the new year we’ll be able to get a date that we can all make.

Friends can be made in the most unexpected places, I’m sure many other friendship groups like ours were created in the queue during that week and I hope they are able to get together as well.

Nose to the grindstone

23 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

My blog has been sadly neglected over the last few weeks.

All of my efforts lately have been concentrated on my Return to nurse practice course. I have done 4 shifts so far on the unit and it all seems to be going well, if not a little exhausting. But thankfully I’m not as fatigued as I feared I would be.

At the moment I’m working on my reflective assignment, I’m sat surrounded by articles on my chosen subjects and I’m desperate for a break. So I have decided to add to my posts for a bit of light relief.

Before I felt able enough to return to nursing I started reading about creative writing. So it’s been difficult trying to get out of the habit of writing creatively and subjectively, and start writing in an analytical style again. The last time I wrote a University level essay was about 9 years ago and I’m very rusty.

The submission date is looming and I’m conscious that I’m running out of time, but I know that I work better under pressure. When I was studying with the Open University I was up very late still writing an assignment the night before I was due to go to New York. I posted it, a day before the due date, at Heathrow Airport just before checking in.

I’ve tried so hard over the years to be more disciplined in my studies but without success. But as the old adage goes,  ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’, every assignment I’ve written has achieved a pass mark in varying numbers.  So I’m not losing too much sleep over it………yet!

Stop procrastinating and get on with it!

16 Mar 2012 1 Comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

I love reading, I read everywhere…….. in the bath, in bed, on the bus… anywhere really. I would be lost if I didn’t have something to read and make sure I have a book in my bag, especially given the bus I have to travel on and the passengers I have to share the bus with!

I love to read some books a second time to study how the author develops the story and characters, because when I read the book for the first time I just want to get to end to find out what happens.

So the natural progression would be to write my own stuff. I have at least 5 book ideas written in my notebook, I carry it everywhere with me so I can scribble ideas down when I think of them. In fact I have many notebooks, I do have a bit of a fetish for them.

I’ve bought a book “Creative Writing for Dummies” to spur me into action. I’ve been talking and thinking about it and procrastinating for long enough. I just need to bite the bullet and start on one of those ideas in my notebook. The book is really good and has lots of exercises to help develop writing skills and ideas.

I will keep the blog posted on my progress in the world of creative writing

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