A week flies by - travelling to the other side of the world

After leaving Bruges, we left our dear friends Serena and Fergus as they went home to Ireland and we experienced the Eurostar to London and Virgin trains to Birmingham. It was a long day of travel. Our train to Birmingham was cancelled but Virgin staff were outstanding in helping to ensure we got David's bike on to the next overcrowded train and we both got seats.

Birmingham Children's Hospital is in a very old building, but they deliver great care. On the Thursday morning, I joined the general paediatric team for morning handover from the "Hospital at night" crew then followed the round which culminated in their radiology meeting. I was interested to see that they have a lot more junior medical staff and full time senior paediatricians as well as a paediatric nurse practitioner on the team. The patient conditions were similar to ours with a range of complexity but they didn't seem as focused on discharging patients as I feel we are, but perhaps they weren't at the peak of their winter needing beds. AFter leaving the hospital in sunshine, a heavy rain shower decided to fall as I walked back to collect David and our bags to go to the train. We had bought first class train tickets this time for the 90 minute trip to London which was much nicer as they served us lunch.

Once settled in our London hotel, I realised I was around the block from Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital so I made David walk me around there on our way down towards Covent Gardens. We always hear about GOSH as a centre of excellence and I wish I'd had time to do a tour there. A romantic dinner at a French restaurant was a much nicer way to spend our last night overseas. :)

The next morning we got to Heathrow in good time to sit and enjoy the Qantas lounge before departure. David was in excellent health then, but by the time we arrived in Perth, he'd lost his voice! He has coughed and spluttered through the past week - poor darling! Cathy, on the other hand, has tried to catch up with a number of people around Melbourne. She also chaired the MCHS Council meeting and filmed a few words for a video about our principal Colin Dobson. most importantly, she made sure she got her flu vaccine to keep in good health. It's been an early start to flu season this year with some severe cases in Victoria.

So then it was time for a 4.00am start to Friday to get to the airport for my flight to Auckland. I arrived to sunshine and helpful staff with all bags ready so I could sail through the airport collecting a travel SIM card on the way. So important to be connected these days. It enables me to use google maps to get around and get onto things like OnzO bikes. Friday afternoon was spent wth Emma Maddren, general manager of Starship CHildren's Hosptial, touring their hospital and discussing common challenges. It was fascinating and she was very geenrous with her time and expertise. I have more visits planned for next week after the RACP COngress is over.

Saturday has been a day of catching up on sleep then enjoying some exercise. I worked out how to hire an OnzO bike whcih only costs $1/hour. You get what you pay for, so I changed to a less squeaky version when I got to Mission Bay. There are no gears but it wasn't too bad. I finally rewarded myself with a delicious Mango gelato at the end.

Tonight is the first of a few dinners associated with the conference so I'll get to see who else has turned up. It is hard getting up in the mornings due to the time zone changes, but easy to chat to David at the end of the day. He embarks on his big drive to Broome tomorrow!

No time for putting in pictures at the moment but at least I have the blog story up to date.