Sunday 29 July 2012

Protest!

Yesterday i had planned on getting a blog post out, but then i remembered that i had already planned to head into town with Marie and Mikaela to protest about the closing of the local hospital where myself, Marie & Marie's mum all work.

So to catch you all up to speed on the story it basically goes like this:

All the hospitals in the region are in a massive amount of debt and most of this debt is owned by the largest hospital in Gothenburg with Lidköping only owing around 10 million which is nothing compared to the rest of them and Gothenburg themselves.

But because we aren't as big as say Gothenburg and Skövde (Skövde is roughly around 1 hour 30 mins+ drive away from Lidköping) the politicians have decided that Lidköping will play the Martyr and will be closed to save pretty much all the money owed.

There has been articles in the paper on numerous occasions stating that the Emergency Ward will not be closed but everything else will be.


This means that a hell of amount of people including myself, Marie & her mum will loose their jobs, which in my opinion is not right, ok right now i'm not actually technically employed as i'm only on a Practice Job which is due to end in the next 4 weeks, but i have as i mentioned in my previous post asked for a extension and from what my boss has said there is a good chance that i could be kept on after that extra 3 months is ended, but if the hospital is closed down there won't be enough work to keep the company i work for (Närservice) going at the hospital which means the chance of getting a job with them, will have gone from a 50% chance to a 0% chance.
So you can understand why i'm totally against it being closed, along with the fact i do not want to see my fiancée or her mother being made unemployed (We honestly can't afford to have 2 people out of work).

So yesterday we all went into town and i got to say damn what a turn out, there was about 100+ people on Facebook that said they would be attending, and then we expected a few people from the hospital who aren't on facebook to attend also and then after that a few people from town since the woman who had arranged all of it had written into the local newspaper (NLT), but when we got there it was shocking there must have been a good 1500+ if not more there at least that's what it looked like.

Photo Marie Had Taken From The Entrance To The Hospital.
This was only some of them, by the time we set of on our protest train as we called it there was a hell of alot more people and even when most of us hit the town square where we were all to gather after walking from the hospital, it was said that there was still people leaving the hospital, this is about a 15 minute walk in total so that should give you a rough idea of how many people attended, since myself and Marie and our little gang we had were roughly in the middle of the train.
I was however surprised, because it was meant to be a protest, and there was no chanting while walking, we actually stopped on several occasions to let traffic that had been stopped go by and basically it was silent, it was more like a sad protest than anything that would gain anyone's attention. 
Sure we had signs and banners and once we actually reached the town square a few people started to chant about saving the hospital and for some strange reason saving the Emergency Ward, which as i stated above has already been mentioned a good few times in the paper that it will still be there. But it wasn't something i would have said would have grabbed peoples attention except for the fact there was so many of us.

I think if there would have been some sort of screaming, or well not screaming but chanting about saving the hospital and stuff, we might have got more people's attention, i also expected the local news reporters to be out to be filming it but they didn't seem to be there either.

However the local newspaper NLT was there and thanks to Marie's great idea about going to see if the little kiosk was open (it wasn't by the way) but we ended up standing on the small stairs leading up to the entrance to the hospital and what happened when we stood there well the news reporter for NLT newspaper came up and started talking to Marie about it asking if we worked here etc, and then guess what? yes we got our picture taken.

Mikaela (My Daughter), Myself & Marie
It turns out the picture was placed on the NLT website along side all of the pictures of the protest, fun? i think not. They have said to keep your eyes out that there will be a continued story about the protest on Monday, so i'm just praying to the high heavens that he doesn't place the photo on there! I seriously will not want to attend work on Monday if they do, since all the cleaning team and the caretakers that i work with all read the paper in the morning when we first come in, and i don't want to have my ugly mug splattered in the paper.

But it was a great day in all, and i hope it helped but only time will tell, i think the current count on signatures is around 4500+ but obviously this will grow and grow quickly.

But for now i think i'm going to go off and chill out, so until next time i hope everyone has had a great week!


Sunday 22 July 2012

Sounds Promising...

So the other week I decided to have a little chat with my boss, seeing as he was going on holiday for 5 weeks and by the time he returned from his holiday I would be finishing off my praktikplats with the company.

Obviously I would love to be kept on with the company as I haven't had so much fun at work EVER! not to mention the people that I work with are truly awesome which makes going to work really fun and enjoyable.
To be honest up until I started with the company I'm with now I used to hate going to work, but now I'm getting up every morning and I feel like "yeehaa time to get to work!"

But anyways I decided to have a chat and see what he thought I should do, and I have to say it sounded really positive and I left the chat feeling really happy.

He has advised me that I should contact the local job center and ask for my praktik to be extended by another 3 months and I have to have a chat with our main boss who is in charge of both the caretakers and the cleaners, so I have done that and am currently waiting for the person at the job center who is in charge of me to come back from holiday and give me a response as to if it's possible.
I have also spoke to my main boss about it on some what of a level, unfortunately there was other people around so i couldn't have a proper chat with her but i shall do that at some point when she returns from her holiday, and see what she has to say.
However she has asked if i would be interested in the cleaning side of the company and i have said that i would, to be honest i will do anything as long as it entails working with the people that i am working with now, because they are all really great people who know how to have a good laugh while getting the job done so we shall see, i shall of course keep you updated on that later on.

I'm just hoping that they will extend it and by the time that 3 months has ended that there is a position with the company available for me.
If not I'm going to be disappointed of course but at least I will have worked in Sweden for 6 months and have a good few reference’s if nothing else.

Of course I would much rather continue with the company as I really do love working there, but we shall see. But from what my boss has said he is really happy with my work and finds it really fun to work with me. So lets keep the fingers crossed eh?

But until next time I hope everyone has had a great weekend and that you have a awesome week.

Tuesday 17 July 2012

We Saved The Ducks!

Not The Actual Ducks We Saved!
I think everyone knows by now how much i love my job and enjoy being back out in the working but yesterday something that happened that made me both happy and a bit sad.

My boss had received a call just after our lunch break by a woman who worked in the emergency ward to inform us that she had spotted baby ducks walking around in a part of the hospital that has no exit or entrance, what had happened was that the mother had flew over the hospital and decided to land and lay her eggs here, so we were asked if there was any way that we could go and get them all and take them back to the river that runs beside the hospital as they didn't have a chance at surviving where they were.

So off myself, my boss and another colleague of mines along with a chap from the hospital caretakers to take a look at where they were and make a plan of action as to how we were going to get them from where they were situated to the river just outside the hospital, eventually after 15 minutes of searching the grounds we managed to locate the 11 little ducklings but the mother was no where to be found.

The plan was to grab a box, try and pick them all up and get them out to the river and hope that by the time we returned or by the time we had caught them all that the mother would return so we could catch her and place them all together, however our plan didn't quite go that way.......

I unfortunately got called away to deal with another matter, but my boss, colleague and the caretaker who works for the hospital managed to pick all 11 up without a problem, but the mother.... well she was no where to be found, so we had 2 options: 
  1. Pick them all up and take them out to the river and hope that the mother located them quickly.
  2. Leave them and come back later and pray they hadn't died by that time.
We opted for the first one and by the time we came back out 30 minutes later to check up on them we couldn't see any of the poor wee ducklings at all, and then we seen it... A big gigantic crow sitting right in front of us with a poor wee duckling hanging out of it's mouth, and then out of the corner of my eye what do i see? But 3 little ducklings swimming around in the river having a blast of a time, i swear you could see them smile! So myself and my boss did everything we could to keep the stupid crows away before heading back in to see if the mother had returned.

It turned out she had and in the attempt to try and catch her she decided to fly up and over the hospital. Unfortunately by this time we were called away to handle other stuff but just before leaving for work yesterday we both popped out the back to see if we could see the 3 little ones that were having a whale of a time in the water and to our relief there was 3 little ducklings quacking away with their mother. Was pretty fun but at the same time i was pretty upset that we didn't manage to save them all!

So if you see any crows flying around throw stuff at them, because they are evil little things i tell you!

But until next time, i hope everyone is having a great week!  

Saturday 14 July 2012

Friends: Old & New...


Last weekend we had arranged with a couple of our old friends that we used to play World Of Warcraft (WoW) with for them to come up to us and spend the weekend just chilling out and having a drink and a good old time and what can i say it turned out to be a crazy and utterly amazing weekend, not only did our 2 old friends that we used to play WoW with come but on that Friday that they were arriving i was contacted by 2 girls from Norway that i also play WoW with currently saying they were on a road trip and coming through Sweden and wondered if it would be alright if they popped in for a coffee and a chat.

Well we are never ones to turn down meeting new people, especially when we have been playing with them (or well i have been playing with them).

So they had contacted me and said that they planned on setting off from Norway on the Saturday morning but after a quick check on Google Maps it became apparent that there was no way in hell they would make it down to us on Saturday if they left that morning so they set off on the Friday night/Saturday morning instead and after a 17 hour drive (Yes 17 straight hour drive) they arrived.

It can be quite strange meeting new people because some of the people i have met that i play online with are completely different from who they are online to who they are in real life, but the 2 girls from Norway were the exact same people in real life as they were in the game which was pretty amazing.

But we had a awesome weekend filled with alot of laughter, i would say a little to much alcohol and some really great BBQ food.

We even got invited up to Norway to where they live, which is certainly something i would love to do as the views up there is like INSTAGRAM heaven, every which way you turn there is another stunning picture ready to be taken, so yea i think that at some point i will need to head up there to visit them, have a good laugh and take some wicked pictures, plus Liss has promised to give me a Gnome Welcome, i have no idea what that entails but she said something about blowing stuff up and stuff so i have no clue!

But what an amazing weekend it was, and i'm so glad we all had the opportunity to meet up again with our old friends and got to meet some new ones! I'm having my 30th Birthday next year so i'm thinking off trying to organize a massive get together with all my friends i've met and some ones i haven't had the chance to yet!

But for now i think i will bid you all farewell i currently have the man flu and it's killing me so my mind is not 100% on blogging, so until next time, have a great weekend! 

Tuesday 10 July 2012

"Choose a job.....

...you love and you will never have to work a day in your life"
~ Confusius

Well today The Angry Scot is not around, and i just thought i (his partner in crime) would make a wee post here in his absence.
As all of you might have understood he is away most of the day now, working and really enjoying it. And coming home at evening doesn't leave alot of time on his hands to actually write a blog-post. I'm sure that there will be a post or two in the next coming few days as we had some good friends here last weekend.



It is amazing seeing what a job can do with a person though. The Angry Scot was unemployed for quite some time and life with him wasn't always the easiest. I totally understand why, i mean, me and the kids was always out all day. We were always talking to other people during the day and doing things, and when we came home we were tired, whilst The Angry Scot sat around the house not really doing anything and the more he sat around, the less energy he had to spare.
He has had some really downs during the last couple of years, struggling with his own identity i would say.
And who wouldn't??
I don't even know if i would have been able to cope with it, and i realize that now. That maybe i never actually can put myself in that state of mind he was in...
I remember being really annoyed at him at times because sometimes it was so damn hard even getting a smile out of him.
He really was The Angry Scot!!
But then again, if you're feeling that there is nothing left to smile for here in the world, why fake it??


But that was then **smiling big**
Then one day a year ago, i designed this blog for him and told him to start blogging about what's on his mind. And to be completely honest i think this blog is what saved his mind from going completely mental..
Then a couple of months back he was granted this "praktik" place.
And like they say; the rest is history.

Now The Angry Scot smiles, so it doesn't really make him so Angry anymore.
Maybe time to change this blog title??
Although naming a blog "The Happy Scot who Smiled" is probably not a good name lol....


So yeah. 
The Angry Scot, not so much angry anymore.
He comes home from work with a smile on his face, tired but still wants to chat away. And he wakes up in the morning acting like a bloody Energizer Bunny, ready to rock....
Now that is awful i tell you, ha ha!!



He has always been the best partner i could have asked for, and the best father figure the kiddies could asked for and they love him to death.
I love him regardless with all of my heart and i always will,
but it is just really nice to see him being somewhat peaceful with where he is at in life too.

So here's to you hubbie...
Love you forever and ever and i really hope that you get to stay with the job you found as you are so happy these days.
But even if you don't, always remember that we love you loads!! <3 <3 <3


/Mie
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Sunday 1 July 2012

No Imagination!

Not A Truer Word Spoken In My Opinion!
We were sitting outside yesterday as Marie was attempting to give Kaiser a good brushing before taking him into the shower and the boys were outside with us as well, but instead of running around the back garden like normal children do playing, they were both sitting around with us just watching.

I had said to them multiple times, that they should go out and just play and twice they did as they were instructed and headed out into the back garden but returned like 5 minutes later to be told the same thing. On the 3rd time i had to tell them to go out and play it occurred to me......
My children have no imagination........

Max: "I Have Things To Do, But You Won't Like Them"
I remember as a child going out and spending hours outside with friends playing Army's or playing on our bikes or whatever and just having a good time, and yet my two twin boys can't seem to even spend more than 5 minutes outside before they are bored and have nothing to do.
As i came to this conclusion i had turned around and said to Marie, "What the hell is up with our kids? They have literally no imagination" and she had then informed me that the other day she had said to them to go upstairs and play with the Lego that we have up their to which their reply was "But we have nothing to build"

Like seriously? you have nothing to build? It's LEGO and we have loads of it upstairs and you are telling me you have nothing to build, yet another prime example of no imagination.
Again this is something i remember sitting with for hours, building loads of random stuff, from castles to high tech ray guns and such likes and yet my 2 wee 6 year olds have literally nothing to build, what the hell is up with that?

"So the question is, is it just my children or has this generation of kids lost all forms of imagination?"
Alexander: "Life Is So Boring"
What is your opinion then? Have children of this generation lost all imagination, and if they has what is the true cause of it? Is it the parents fault? or is the fact that these days kids are only happy if they are sitting in front of a TV or playing a games console?
I would really love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this subject, personally i think it is technology that has destroyed our kids imagination, but then saying that i don't allow my children to sit in front of the TV or play game consoles all that much but still.

Drop me a comment and let's have a good discussion.