Been quiet here, hasn't it?

It's not like I'm expecting anyone to be tapping their fingers and at a complete loose end, thinking "where's that Mrs M with her incisive and witty ramblings?" But there is a sense of guilt about not blogging for such a long time.

I'm one of nature's blabbermouths. I've always been someone who has to gob off about stuff incessantly. I know I've always made up stories, and that I make things that happen into anecdotes to make sense of them.

Recently I've been on a midwifery placement that I can't really talk about. It's not top-secret midwifery or anything like that. Not MI5-wifery. Just an area where confidentiality is even more important than in other places. I've had a head full of the things I've been doing and nothing else has seemed to be able to come to the surface past it.

It's difficult, when you see things that put trivial worries into perspective. Helpful in a way, but then it makes you impatient with other people's problems which actually are serious and need sympathy. Just because someone's leg has fallen off it doesn't mean your ingrowing toenail doesn't hurt after all.

But now the year has turned and I'm off to catch babies again and hopefully I can get closer to the target of 40 which I need in order to be a real, proper midwife and qualify for a darker blue dress. There's nothing to be said for the uniform, by the way. I do wonder why we still have this kind of uniform, a version of an old fashioned nurses' dress which is impractical, uncomfortable and not entirely flattering. Some people like the uniform because it looks professional and it identifies you as belonging to a particular group of people. I don't like it for the same reasons really; it is divisive, a way of pulling rank over some ("do as I say, I'm in a uniform") and being subservient to others ("yes, doctor").

I do sometimes hanker over a swishy cloak and a starched hat though. Good for keeping things under.