Happily Ever After really feels like just a fairy tale sometimes; and I’m genuinely not thinking about myself when I say it...  You see I put aside my job search for a while and started thinking long and hard about what I need to do to improve my skills and knowledge.  Don’t laugh, but I decided to put myself out there. I know that sounds a bit dodgy. I assure you it has nothing to do with my twerking skills. Nor my ability to complete a Donner kebab marathon after a couple of pints of Old Peculiar!  So I asked my charming friend/colleague/nemesis Charisma at the Nursing Agency to see if she could book me in for a few shifts outside of my normal haunts. I figured if I was going to improve my skills, I would have to move outside of my comfort zone and challenge myself a bit. Sadly, Charisma thought I was having a go. Which meant she found me the most challenging place to work that she could – but in my cup-half-full kind of way – most rewarding too!  ...

After my disastrous introduction to the swarm of Nursing recruitment agencies out there, the lady at Recruitment Panda is my new best friend.   Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t suddenly gone soft in the head and I’m not going to be pushed into doing something I don’t feel comfortable with, but her regular calls to update me on different opportunities or simply to explain what avenues she’s exploring on my behalf are like a breath of fresh air.  She’s come up with a couple of possible matches for full time nursing roles for me but explained that the homes were recently out of embargoes after getting in a pickle. She said she wanted me to know as much about the homes as possible so that there were no surprises and I was able to make fully informed choices.  I told her I didn’t think I was confident enough to go into those sorts of homes and she understood – told me she wanted to let me know what was out there, but was glad that I would wait for something that w...