Miracles do happen at Easter!

A miracle happened this Easter.

Unfortunately nobody rose from the dead.

(Did that offend some of you? Its just that I am still trying to teach patients to do that but they just don't want to learn. So far I've been unsuccessful at waking them once they've passed on...Sister C says it's because only Jesus is allowed to do that. I told Sister C that if that's so then Jesus is selfish. She was too mortified to respond and ignored me for the rest of my last trauma shift.)

No, the miracle was that for the first time in 5 years I have not been on call over the Easter weekend. FIVE BLOODY YEARS!

This meant that starting from Thursday afternoon I had exactly four whole days free. FOR FREE! I didn't even have to ask for special leave.

So the hubby and I packed our bags and drove like two tortured bats out of hell down the N1 to the peaceful town of McGregor. A sleepy charming village in the Breede River Valley, where the green and white houses are neatly arranged and the gardens are full of blooming bouganvilla and luscious iceberg rose bushes. There is one main road, two cafe's and a dam. There is no hospital or clinic. There isn't even a pharmacy. What bliss!

We stayed in a luxury self-catering cottage. And that's all we did. We stayed there. We never left it. It was even better than our honeymoon in Vietnam because we didn't feel compelled to sight-see. In fact, we could sight-see the whole of McGregor while sitting on the front porch in our underwear chewing braaivleis.

For four days I experienced what the rest of South Africa looks forward to every April. And there are people out there who get to do this EVERY year? Lucky bastards.
There are also those people who get to do this every year, who go completely overboard.

These people celebrate by getting drunk, doing drugs, raping, shooting and stabbing. They usually come and tell us about it in the trauma unit.
This is a holy weekend after all, someone's gotta give us something to pray for right!?

I'm back in Cape Town now and I'm getting that nervous pre-work feeling.

My lovely facility manager has put me in trauma tomorrow from 7am to 5pm.
It will be the first day after the Easter weekend carnage.
I'm trying hard not to think about it.
I'm going to go to work with positivity and enthusiasm.
I'm going to defend myself from the work stress it took four days of doing nothing to get rid of.
I hope it lasts the whole day.
It probably won't and tomorrow evening you'll most likely read about how to have the joy sucked out of you by the government health system.

Sweet dreams!