After working for two weeks straight I have had a chance to spend two enjoyable days hiding from the world while sitting on my backside reading,watching TV and of course – playing World of Warcraft.

Now I return to work for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday nightshifts.

Deep. Joy.

The standard breakdown for a weekend nightshift is as follows.

19:00 – Clock on at the station.

19:01 – First call, normally to someone elderly, probably chest pain

20:00 – Man with ‘man-flu’

21:00 – First assault of the night, outside a pub.

22:00 – ‘Unconscious’ male in street – normally a homeless guy.

23:00 – Another assault.  Fueled by alcohol.

00:00 – ‘Unconscious’ – drunk in street.

01:00 – Child with a high temperature – everyone in the house is awake.

02:00 – Young man with bellyache / young woman with dizziness. (We are now the only ambulance running from West Ham)

03:00 – Nightclubs kick out.  An assault who doesn’t want to go to hospital.

03:30 – Drunk in the street or a drunk who has injured themselves.

04:30 – Get back to station.

04:31 – Maternataxi.

06:00 – Another Maternataxi.

06:30 – Return to station – start watching the clock for sign-off at 07:00.

06:57 – Get a job for a little old lady, miles out of my area with cardiac chest pain.

06:57:01 – Start swearing.

07:25 – After a ‘scoop and run’ return to station to sign off – all ready to repeat the night in just 11 hours and 35 minutes.

Tell you what – I’ll do one of my ‘updated throughout the night’ things.  I can’t guarantee that this is how things will unroll (and this in part is the pleasure of this job), so we can see how far away from my prediction things fall…