Hannah Elizabeth

I've been quietly applying for a couple of jobs this year and sadly, neither of them have quite worked out, but I still wanted to talk about them here and share a little more about why I was interested in them.  I actually applied for both of these before my flexible working request got approved and I was really struggling and ultimately stressing about my work-life balance and the time taken to get to and from work. Both of the jobs gave me the flexibility I was desiring, with the option to self-roster as part of a small team, which I thought would be ideal.  One was to be a Homebirth Midwife. I absolutely loved my job as a Community Midwife during my Preceptorship, however I always felt very stretched and taken advantage of as a Newly Qualified Midwife. When this job came up, I was really struggling in the hospital, because every shift I would be moved and my passion is and always will be labour care, but there was sometimes up to a month where that didn't happen. I was ex...

I recently attended my first event at Trent Bridge, Nottinghamshire's cricket ground. Whilst a sporting stadium, this was actually a drone show which is something I'd never heard before. I thought it sounded really exciting and interesting so jumped at the opportunity when I found out I would actually have someone to go with as well.  The booking process was quick and easy. The company organising the ticket sales was Yuup who I hadn't heard of before, but nevertheless seemed very thorough. To be honest, it was a little too thorough. They sent out emails and texts far too often in the build up and the week before, it was every singe day as a countdown! It was too much.  In terms of the event itself. It was well organised and smooth to get in. There was a short line on arrival, but they quickly scanned the tickets on my phone. Despite the NHS discount, they didn't check our NHS IDs, nor did they have a security process to check bags which I felt was a little off putting a...

I've made a number of posts over the years of work-life balance and here's another little update on my new contract. Working in the NHS isn't always easy and at times it can be really quite difficult. It's important to try and make shift patterns and the working schedule work around your life as much as possible. Whilst I would absolutely love to have self-rostering be apart of my Trust, it's currently only for smaller teams and not for midwifery staff members at present. That being said, there are still ways that you can utilise to get a better shift pattern for you as an individual.  I have recently - finally - increased my contract hours at work. I have two separate contracts, one for my Labour Suite Midwife role as a Band 6 and the other as my Sessional Professional Midwifery Advocate role as a Band 7. I do 7.5 hours a month (just under 2 hours a week) as the latter, and that is the contract, however for the former, I dropped my hours from 37.5 hours a week to 2...

A busy weekend with a lovely sleepover catch up with my longest friend!  Click here to watch the vlog or see below.  To prepare for one of my longest friend visiting for the weekend, I had a few days off beforehand and was really trying to get back on day shift mode. Having done so many night shifts over recent weeks, it's defintely been a struggling but slowly but surely. I felt it was quite positive as I woke up and started by day at 7am. I tidied the house, undecorated for Valentines and then had a cleaner come to deep clean the main rooms of the house, before I decorated for St Patrick's Day. You can see a little  decor haul  here.  I found out the day before that Leicester was having a night lights trail over the weekend so considered going to that. When we looked it up, it was a 50 minute drive just to the parking so it was going to be a very long night and given that Hannah had just had a 3 hour drive, we decided just to stay at mine instead. We talked fo...

This year, Wollaton Park, was hosting a Holi Festival celebration for the public. It was a place for both a cultural enjoyment and as a charity fundraising and outreach opportunity. It was organised by the Nottingham City Council, but in collaboration with Nottingham Asian Arts Council and Sanskriti Association of Nottingham.  Holi  is a major Hindu festival celebrated as the Festival of Colours, Love, Equality and Spring. Additionally, the day signifies the triumph of good over evil, with the daubing of coloured powders for the blossoming of love. The powders used were all made from natural flower dyes.  It wasn't quite as big as I was expecting, however it did get busier as the day went on. When we arrived, it was very quiet, but livened up as the time went on, mostly with thanks to the music. It started with some calming prayer music, then moved to dancing. There were 2 groups of children doing different varieties of traditional dances, then a group of adults and ...