Day fifty-three - Thursday

Banana bread - Mk I

So as it was my penultimate day I decided to bake some banana bread for the A&E staff - it's my go-to baking recipe! Turned out pretty good, and went down extremely well in the dept! Quiet morning but a highlight was the unexpected return of one of my first patients, the man who's ear I'd stitched up in the first week. I spied him waiting outside one of the cubicles but couldn't place him, then when I walked past he said hi and pointed to his ear - the penny dropped! I have to say the scar looked incredible, it had healed really nicely and was barely visible. He was pleased with it which was the main thing. It's not often in A&E that you get to see the long term recovery of your patients, so I was very satisfied to find out in this case.

Before long it was midday and I nipped out to the ferry terminal to pick up Alice - she'd taken a sleeper train from Euston to Inverness the previous night, then a coach to Ullapool before the ferry over to Stornoway. Due in at 1245 I was there on time - obviously it was then delayed until 1315! Short wait, but was nice to see the ferry coming into the harbour knowing she was on it!

Alice arriving - after 10 weeks!

Drove back to the flat, had some lunch and caught up briefly before duty called me back to A&E for the afternoon - needlessly it turns out as no-one came in during the afternoon! Snuck off a bit early to chill with Alice before heading down to the Thai Cafe in town for dinner with everyone. On the way called into a really nice Harris Tweed shop called By Rosie (http://www.byrosie.co.uk/) where Alice had mysteriously arranged an item of clothing for which I was measured but not told what it was. Under duress I had to choose a tweed, went for a really nice deep green with flecks of gold. Not sure what it's for though! Stornoway was having a late night opening to promote the local shops so it was quite strange wondering round at 7pm with all the shops open - maybe they should try it on a Sunday occassionally!

Thai Cafe for a superb meal, Alice and I had the set menu which was perfect - great value and proper bona fide thai food. Lovely. Good turnout from the hospital as well, most of the med students and lots of the foundation doctors. Moved on to McNeil's irish pub in town afterwards with the Aberdeen med students to support Tim Martinez and the Charango Trio who were playing on the open mic night. Was good fun, nice to have a bit of a send off drinks, as tomorrow will be my last day!