Hello friends, I hope you’re having a good day. It’s glorious weather here, and I’m looking forward to eating my lunch in the lovely tranquility garden here at George Eliot. It’s a smashing place to relax for half an hour, especially if you’ve got a good book, and I’ve got a corker! It’s our latest reading group book- I saw a man by Owen Sheers. I’m only 3 chapters in and I’m hooked! I can see if being one of those books that I can’t stop thinking about and can’t wait to get back to reading. Last month’s book- The Power by Naomi Alderman- really divided our group, with several not 
finishing it. It was a good dystopian, feminist, sci-fi book, which is completely up my street. Have to say that the discussion and debate in the group was fabulous- probably our best yet.
On the topic of reading- I’ve had a discussion today with colleagues about how good reading is for your mental health and productivity, and I’ve just written onto my to-do list to carry out a literature search on the topic, to see what’s out there. I have a few topics I’m really interested in at the moment, isn’t it great when your work sparks your imagination.
As I type, it’s Health Information week, and my excellent colleagues are out and about in the hospital with representatives from our diabetes team, talking to staff, patients, carers, and anyone else who passes about Health information, and where to find good quality information online. We’ve also been giving out free fruit, for some reason it’s always the bananas that go first- now there’s a research topic! We’ve also taken part in a couple of well-being events to talk about Health information week, amongst other well-being topics. We visited our non-clinical colleagues over in their offices along with our communications team, and gave out free fruit, biscuits, coffee and other goodies. It was such a lovely way to start the week, making some people smile on a Monday morning. Then we hot footed it to the garden to an event to thank junior doctors in the sunshine. It’s the best Monday I’ve had in quite a while!
I do love that my role gives me scope to be involved in such positive events. Today I even shook the hand of a new consultant who had asked about clinical librarian support in the hospital. How great is that- the expectation that the clinical librarian is someone useful to meet!
Have a great week everyone. Enjoy the sunshine.