N is for .............nurse

My first real job after leaving school was to work as a nurse and of course we had to train for 3 years to become those caring professionals, whom you would trust to look after your granny.

The trouble is as you all know its customary to make some mistakes along the way on the route to knowledge and I was no exception. I was young and naive and did some daft or stupid things.

I was wise enough though not to fall for the old joke the junior doctors tried to pull on all the new nurses. In those days it was expected that nurses did what the doctors told them....can you believe that? So they took great delight in identifying the rawest looking new nurse fresh out of school and saying in all seriousness "Nurse I need you to go along to the lab and get me 2 fallopian tubes" And yes some poor souls did trot along and return to a gaggle of doctors giggling in the store rooms.

But what I managed to do probably ranks higher on the Richter scale of silliness. You might think its a simple task to give someone a bath. But there are a few challenges, I got the temperature of the water right dont worry about that! I was busy assembling all the other necessary bits .towels,soap,hoist etc. wards however are busy places and someone in the hierarchy was always asking you to do something. Have you guessed my fatal mistake yet? Yes...I did forget to turn the tap off and the flow was pretty fast and unfortunately it was the Sister in charge who spotted the growing flood that swirled around her ankles. Lets just say that it took a whole army of cleaners with special suction machines an hour to sort it out. They were not pleased to miss their lunch break.

However I promise that I looked after all the grannies with great care and kept them all spotless!