Popping Up From A Pile Of Books To Say Hello

Hello!

Gosh, I cannot believe how long it has been. How are you all? I have been having quite an adventure-if you have a cup of tea handy, I will tell you.

The Library Is Closed.

Doesn't that sound dramatic? Libraries don't close. But mine has. Not forever, just (just!) for four weeks, while we are refurbished and have a self-service system installed, and change the layout. But ohh, how different it is. Firstly I am working very different hours- we are not working Saturdays or Late Nights, so have to go in earlier and leave later to make up the hours. And we are so busy out in the library, I have literally not had a moment to go on line and post, or read the blogs that I usually catch up with every day. And I am so tired- I will tell you about what I have been up to at work to cause it- but I am so tired that in the evenings it has been dinner, bath and bed.

You see first we had to pack up all the fiction and all the audio-visual. And considering we were a few years ago the third biggest public library in Europe (or so I am told!) that is a lot of books. I was packing up CD's near a window, when I was aware that a customer was watching me through the glass. And watching. And watching. I looked up to shoo them away and explain we are CLOSED when I realised it was dear Carl on his way to work! Ooops!

The last four days have been spent industriously- I can only imagine that I am going to have arms like Arnold Swarzenegger's by the end of it. The non-fiction needs to have fifty shelves 'found' which we are doing by moving all the books on a shelf that has a gap at the end to the end of the gap. Then taking a few books off the shelf before to go on the start of that shelf until it is full. Then moving the books on that shelf up, and repeating the process. By the end of day four we had twenty shelves which is pretty good I think. There were some rather hilarious scenes when we were passing books from around the corner of a shelf or across a large gap.

So, three weeks to go. Tomorrow I am off to one of the smaller branch libraries to be RFID (self-service) trained. This I do not worry about as one of the lovely girls who drives is taking me with her. But next week, oh, woe, I am off to a different library that means I have to get the train. On my own. And change trains mid way. Oh, woe. If you do not hear from me again after next week, you will know that I took the wrong train and am hopelessly lost, chuntering up and down train tracks and trying to find my way home again!

On to more cheery things than work. I dashed out for a hot chocolate on Tuesday. There is a Thornton's five or ten minutes away from the library, and they do their hot chocolate as take out. For 30p cheaper than on the menu! And they give you a little chocolate in a bag to have with it. Well, I emerged from the shopping centre to find...it was snowing! Not enough to settle, but enough to make me breathlessly happy that it was snowing on me, on me, and I had a proper hot chocolate, and did not have to work till seven that night as usual.

Am ridiculously happy crocheting on my blanket although I have not done any today. You see I have a lovely evening every Monday when my crafting friend visits, and I have just enough wool left to crochet with her tomorrow night!

I have an overwhelming urge to fill my windowsill with hyacinths, daffodils, paperwhites and narcissus (narcissi??) but at £1.50 a bunch, I do not think I will be filling it soon. Instead I am going to get some hyacinths and polyanthus until daffodil season starts properly- besides I do like to save them for my February treat. (Alison at Brocante Home once said that we should buy daffodils as often as we buy milk in February, and I can attest most heartily to this wisdom!)

And one last delightful thing to leave you with. We find ourselves with a few extra pennies this month, as we pay our council tax by direct debit in ten installments, leaving us with February and March where we put the money into our account, but they dont take it out. So we have treated ourselves to a proper whistling kettle! By proper I mean that it goes on the gas hob, not one that just looks proper but plugs in at the wall. It is cream, and delightful. We got a cream trivet to go with it, and are using some of the knitted dishcloths I made last year to hold the handle when it is hot. It does take a minute or two longer, but dear Carl assures me it is more energy efficient, and it is so scrumptious to hear the kettle whistling! If I narow my eyes slightly, so the edges of the flat are a bit squiffy, when the kettle whistles and I look out of the window, I can almost imagine that I am the countryside.

Utter, utter bliss!