zurich

hopped to switzerland for one last burst of fire pre-baby. got clearance to fly (BA flies till week 36!) and it was all systems go. short flight (90min to zurich) and was feeling atypically energetic. flew outta london city which i much prefer to heathrow because it's smaller, more efficient, shorter queues if there's even one at immigration and less hanging about. kinda equidistant by public transport too. zurich is always good, had a bonus night there in august (?) after a missed flight heh so had been recently but jumped at the chance to stay in old town and go to bellvue christmas market.

funny story there - literally walked into A, a travel journalist i'd met in ecuador april 2013! we'd stayed at mashpi lodge in the cloud forest at the same time and hit it off. he was there on assignment writing about the cocoa industry and we tried to meet up when he was in singers but missed each other. hadn't seen him since ecuador nor communicated in years but when i saw him it kinda clicked. then i thought about how he'd said his husband was swiss and they were based in zurich so it suddenly all made sense and i said hello. he was surprised but remembered me (or pretended to at least haha) and we caught up briefly. small world and hm funny what the brain remembers ie a face from years ago vs what i ate for breakfast yesterday.

enjoyed the market so much we went back the next day in daylight for more ethnic goodies

kindness

a singaporean 'aunty friend' who was in london many summers ago invited me to join her and her relative who was based in london for lunch. we went to hackney (!!!) where i hadn't been to then, and had a lovely vietnamese meal at song que. turned out that we'd lots in common, not least being singaporean ex-lawyers. the aunty friend returned to singers but S and i kept in touch, albeit sporadically. when she heard i was expecting a boy, she very kindly started knitting for him and invited me round hers for a home-cooked meal once i started maternity leave. i was moved by her gracious hospitality, how she cooked so much and sent me home with enough food for an army. in a way it's the sort of kindness i can't repay but can only pay forward. grateful for these chance meetings and the kindness of (former) strangers.

farewell dinner

maternity leave rolled round pretty quick and my consultant was kind to organise a farewell dinner. felt far from deserving as the most junior on the team, but any excuse for a curry meal! we went back to the curry resto we'd the welcome dinner at four months ago and it didn't disappoint. the GP trainee had left too and the staff grade was also going on maternity leave, plus christmas was around the corner so it was nice to get the team together before the holidays. granted, we were due the ward christmas party the same week but it wasn't too much of a good thing ;) 

very efficient dinner - seated at 6, food by 630 and out by 730. i like how once the conversation slowed down, consultant called for the bill and we were all off to respective families at a decent hour. 

it was undoubtably a tough job, compounded by the fact that it was my first, and i'm grateful for the incredible support and guidance i received. appreciate it won't always be that good, and i lucked out with this consultant and senior support. trying not to think about what i'll be returning to (because at this stage, goodness knows!) and to live in the present. enjoying some down time before baby comes, and then the plan is to take things a day at a time. can't pre-empt every future problem, can't solve for every possible exigency.

carol service

this goes back a few weeks but i was organised enough to book tickets for a christmas carol service. was all nostalgic for the carol services i'd attended in the past and felt somewhat shortchanged that there were no carols (nor mulled wine and minced pie after!) at this one :( bumped into aunty D and she joined us for dins at the good earth opposite. had takeaway with another family friend before and my supervisor when i was at GOS kindly brought me there for chinese new year. was keen to go back but hadn't got round to it. did the lazy guai lo thing and ordered 2 set dinners for the 3 of us and there was more than enough to go round. in fact, with GOS supervisor we'd 4 set dinners among 5 of us and it was plenty! saves the hassle of having to think and i was just lazy and slightly grumpy. although in hindsight should we return, i'd order a la carte cos it'd have worked out cheaper.

pub lunch monday

it was monday and i met the former SHO on my ward midway for lunch. this cute little coaster sent me back to northern ireland where we'd lunch at the bushmill pub. alas, pregnant plus working lunch = only diet coke for me :(

had the fish cake with poached egg, spinach and hollandaise while M had the sausage and mash swimming in gravy. think i should've ordered that instead and was sent into a tailspin of food envy.

and because M's a busy doctor with a long list of patients to see in clinic and i was mid-protest because the ward was mayhem, i lingered and pud on my own. pineapple crumble drowned in custard was just the fuel i needed before another afternoon in paradise.

monkey's fingers

so i've had the pleasure of being placed on a ward with wonderful people. often hear war stories of nightmare first jobs with difficult personalities but absolutely cannot complain / have asked to be part of a better team. whilst i'm without a doubt the lowest life form and right at the bottom of the food chain, i've an incredible GP trainee, great regs and the worlds' best consultant who i wish i could keep with me for every job after this. it's been the perfect balance of trust where i'm occasionally alone on the ward, valiantly trying to stand between the patients and certain death (i jest) but consultant is always a phone call away. in fact, he's so accessible that the (smart) nurses just ring him straight instead of going through me because they know they'll get an almost instant answer. 

this whole starting my first doctor job in second trimester was cause of apprehension and i cannot ignore that my job isn't the safest. but i think the dangerous aspects of it have been mitigated to the best of everyone's abilities and i try not to be a liability on the ward. i get tons of clinical supervision (which's especially important as a junior!) and am increasingly confident on the ward, running ward round and seeing patients on my own, checking management plan with consultant but am generally making the right calls and exercising sound judgment, or so i like to think!

but yes, monkey's fingers! M and i were done early one day and figured we'd hazard meat liquor outside peak hours for their monkey's fingers. which were incredible and i wondered where they'd been my whole life. because i'd time to kill before an antenatal appointment nearby, i went gin shopping at selfridges and was almost late for said appointment, because, well, priorities. sorry baby!

faroe day 3

post storm, the weather cleared up somewhat and we made hay while the sun shone, kinda. lots more driving (this time around suduroy) and random stopping to tromp through farmer's fields. thankfully no more crazy wind and i shook off the PTSD after the harrowing hike with the cliff. to be honest, all of the walking was cliffside so i'd to be extra careful and pick my way uphill on firm footing.

these basalt columns reminded me of the giants causeway in belfast, and the other end of said causeway on the isle of staffa just off mull in the highlands. i know they're meant to be a big deal and all but, really, it's not that rare. alas no puffins because they hatch their young inland then all leave mid-aug for rafts at sea that they live for the rest of the year.

stopped by a hotel in the second largest town and it felt like going back in time to the 60s. the owner happened to have been a radio / signal (?) engineer for mersck (?) and been to singers twice, once in the late 60s and once in the 80s. he was only too happy to reminisce about his time there and how surprised he was at the massive improvement it'd undergone between his visits. what was cool was he knew the cottage despite me only showing him a photo and knew the whole history. which made me think that it was really a very small place and i refrained from asking him how one avoids marrying their cousin. he also had whaling pics up on the walls that i felt best to avoid discussing. 2 out of 3 conversation OB markers narrowly averted ;)

he'd a great tip about going to the radio station the british used during WWII and the weather miraculously took a turn for the better so we'd some blue skies. maybe the hotel bossman knew ;)

team dins

i like work and am fortunate to be in a good team. appreciate this might not always be the case so am extra grateful to have lucked out this job with wonderful consultant and seniors. consultant is a wonderful mix of fatherly concern and font of wisdom. it's funny how he's convinced i'm working too hard (far from) and chases me home when i'm still in the office. during my maternity assessments, he's been incredibly fair and while i've yet to use any of the wriggle room he's so kindly made available, it's nice to know it's there should i need it. couldn't have asked for more. 

team dins is another highlight and we went to a pakistani curry where our party was the only non south asian clientele! always a good sign ;) the curries were fantastic and my inner el cheapo was thrilled when it came to £10/person including service. say what??? methinks i need to venture out of RBKC more often heh.

newlyweds

it's funny how we smug marrieds stick together ;) one of my co-workers just tied the knot over summer and moved into his marital home a stone's throw from mine. once upon a time, the mister and i used to run past his to get to spin class across the river. then we got lazy! but i noticed his shiny new wedding band during induction and we got talking. hearing him speak so warmly about his new wife made my heart sing. i'm a self-confessed love junkie / serial monogomist so people in love is one of my favourite things. felt like i knew her already. missed their housewarming as was going to be in the country that weekend but they very kindly invited me round for dinner after work one night. S (the blushing bride) is the sweetest and made a mean roast. lovely time round their table talking about weddings, about how people were surprised they got married "so young", as if marriage was a death knell to their respective ambitions. felt that was really unfair and took umbrage on their behalf when people are presumptuous and give marriage a bad rep. 

all for long term monogramy so hm don't think marriage itself is a huge deal but if it's something the couple believes it, why be a downer?

ckt

my palate is decidedly asian and i'm happiest slurping noodles in soup. the MSG gets to me and being parched / disproportionately thirsty after is never a good thing. that'll teach me to not make broth from scratch. but noodles in other forms are great too and one day i was craving char kway teow so badly i practically ran from the tube to the restaurant. it must've been a wednesday afternoon cos that's when i slope off a little bit earlier and thank goodness i didn't have far to go for my fix. this may or may not have been triggered by my fam sending pics over whatsapp from singers. 

the restaurant was surprisingly crowded for mid week afternoon but i got my ckt and then banana fritters after. sometimes comfort food is all i need.

incidentally, a friend just moved near me and she makes a mean ckt from scratch so i'm planning to take up her kind offer of popping round for dins one night :)

wengen

in my final semester of lawsch, i took a "take home" final exam to danang, vietnam to complete at a friend's birthday party. definitely one of my (few) proud moments, although the prof for that module was unimpressed by my lack of self-control. note to self: don't post gloaty holiday photos when you're in the middle of a 72h take home, at least not without restricting the audience first. but if i hadn't gone to danang, i'd never have met S who has become a dear friend over the years. visited her at her home near luzern a couple of christmases ago, she's come for tea at mine in london while looking at universities for her daughter and more recently, has been very generously extending an open invitation to her home in the mountains. 

jumped at the chance to escape the big smoke yet again and didn't need to have my rubber arm twisted. her cabin is in wengen, car-free and accessible only by cogwheel train (!!!). bonus - i love trains and even more so when i'm not on godawful virgineastcoast up and down the country. as luck would have it, found a weekend other friends (puerto rican lawyers based in NYC and their college-aged sons) from the same danang party (all connected through E&P our danang bday hosts) were going to be visiting and made a pre-party of it. was resigned to massive FOMO because they were pre-gaming prior to E's 60th birthday extravaganza in berlin which i very sadly couldn't attend because, well, work. but hey, a bonus weekend in the alps? sign me up.

the alpine cabin was what it said on the tin and when i told another friend of my weekend plans, he got very excited and thought it would be all bond baddie alpine lair stylez a la blofeld's lair from on her majesty's secret service with hot chickies in lycra. uh, think again. gimme S' swiss hospitality anytime :)

spent two glorious days walking in the mountains. S and her husband knew the paths like the back of their hands, walking in summer, skiing in winter and it was like living in a technicolour ricola advertisement, if you get what i mean. was feeling incredibly smug about my pseudo-mountaineering ability at 18 weeks gestation until i suspected they'd probably picked the easiest walks for us to do.

M would wake early and procure us fresh yoghurt, bread and cheese from the lone grocer. breakfast was a simple yet hearty affair and i could eat it forever and ever. the milk! the glorious fat in it! the butter! all the dairy products my lactose-intolerant constitution could stomach!

S even had the brainwave of doing a hot chocolate blind tasting! so we'd plenty of energy to use against gravity on the mountains.

alas i might've underestimated the summer sunshine and ended up lobster red. silly :( also missed my flight from zurich to london because of sunday traffic. but hey who's really complaining about an extra night in switzerland? had redeemed BA miles for the flight anyhow so took the first flight out monday morning and made it to the ward in time to prep for ward round. never mind it was walk of shame-ish cos i had to be gross and wear the same clothes i'd left the ward in on friday cos i'd gone straight to heathrow after work.  #winning