Are you in your element?

I was asked that question by the male receptionist in my new job. He's outwardly friendly, but repeatedly pops his head round the door into the kitchen, saying nothing and walking away a second later. I feel checked up on; it's not part of his job and none of the other receptionists bother us like that.

It was the first day back after a weekend spent with Trina, on the lash and the dancefloor, sharing pub tables with amusing strangers, and being blessed by the gift of a music I love -- house music -- being also liked by attractive middleaged women. I was cleaning out a large commercial fridge, raking chemicals down the grooves in its rubber seals. I didn't think I was betraying any transport of self-fulfilment in my appearance.

I have two people training me. One, a hyperactive control freak who who likes to delegate the washing-up and enjoys making public remarks about irrelevant mistakes, ("your knock [on the patients' doors] is too... it's too... jovial"); and a more congenial sub-continent lad who is more laid back and lets me make the important mistakes, although I don't want to be drawn into the matey camaraderie of the Islam-flavoured misogyny which ripples underneath his chat occasionally.

I work three consecutive twelve-and-a-half hour shifts before at least three days off. It feels as though it's one long shift. The job involves taking the patients' food out, supplying them with tea, (the panacea of the English, although you soon realised the balm they're after is sugar, and tea is but its vehicle), a great deal of retrieving of cups and washing up, and being on one's feet for achingly long lengths of time. It's a fast-moving ward, which makes ordering and distributing their food a bit of an organisational plate-spinner, as people are moved in and out all the time. I gave two separate people two dinners each the other day.

There are some shouters, who need constant care and help with the most basic of tasks; a centenarian frequent attender who has acquired the unfortunate private nickname of The Shitter, for reasons of her frequent, uncontrolled and very stinky poos; and some elderly people who sleep on their backs, mouths agape, who look as though they might be involved with some stage of death, along with people who do not trouble the bed, waiting only for a bone to be reset.

My colleagues are, in the main, young, ambitious, socially adept women. I'm rather taken aback to be spoken to pleasantly and smilingly by an attractive young woman. Leaving with one of the trainee nurses the other night, I realised, as we walked through a staff-only corridor together, that her attractiveness is not a currency for her in her interactions with me.

My next-door neighbour died a few weeks ago, and we were allowed to have our pick of some of his lesser belongings. I acquired a cutlery tray and a small plastic mandoline. Last night I added a small slice of my right thumb to the scalloped potatoes I was cooking for me and Mel. It got lost in the mix so, this Easter, one of us has partaken of the Body of Looby.