It is Thursday evening. I have just reached the end of three days of 'training'. Two days of Trust Induction in lovely Huntington (70 mile trip each way but a pleasant drive) and one day of Level 3 safeguarding training. Although I will never complain about learning opportunities, I can say I am emotionally and physically drained!
I am now sitting in Lakeside in Las Iguanas snacking on some Dadinhos with a sweet chilli jam and sipping on a Pina Colada. I can feel myself slowly starting to relax and reassemble myself.
I have tried this month to avoid eating out but this evening requires me to be somewhere at a particular time with no real time to go home and eat a proper home cooked meal. I have an uneaten cheese sandwich in my lunchbox but have no appetite such basic fodder. Instead I am getting ready to tuck into the Xinxim – chicken and crayfish in a creamy lime and peanut sauce with spring onion rice, fine green beans, sweet plantain and sprinkled with coconut farofa. Yes. That's what I'm talking about…
I was struck for the first time, during the induction programme, on the focus on our wellbeing at work. Perhaps I have zoned off in previous carnations of these two to three days events but I just do not remember such an interest in us as employees. It was refreshing, even if, one of the speakers did tell us that if we fall ill, there was no plan B, so as the most valuable resource in the Trust, they have a duty to take care of us. There was also the message that we should also take active steps to take care of ourselves and our colleagues. And so here I am.
The girl in the bubble 