I was crowned today…

‘Nicola – Queen of the library’ but you lot can still call me ‘Nic’ 🙂

Actually it’s not nearly as glamorous or regal as it sounds and doesn’t include a sparkly tiara or a bouquet of flowers. It was a nod to my efficiency and speed of work apparently. My predecessor used to have the crown for being the most super-speedy worker there and they decided today that I replaced her in more ways than just taking her working hours. So that was nice :). I wouldn’t have said but I knew you’d all be keen to hear ;).

It was really busy today actually, loads of people bringing back books so lots of shelving, lots of books in the daily delivery for borrower reservations so lots of phoning people to tell them their books are in and also The Rotation Plan, which we must speak of in a hushed and reverent tone. But all it really means is that print outs of statistics spew out regularly and are looked at by Important People (librarians). One such print out lists books which have not been borrowed for X period of time and are therefore taking up space on shelves but not justifying it. So the first course of action is to move them around to other libraries to see if they get borrowed from there. Eventually they either get sold or last copies get kept in stores. So today’s task was to work off a print-out and pick all the books, videos, cds, dvds etc. listed ready to be packed off to another local library. Not really that taxing and once you know which shelf a book is likely to be nestling on it’s pretty straightforward to go and grab it, but I do still work at Retail Pace and view every task as one to complete and get onto the next one rather than the ‘job for the day’.

I found a recipe for pork chops (planned dinner for tonight) in one of the cookery books so during my lunch break I went and got the extra ingredients for that, stupidly forgetting that I’d walked in to work and would need to walk home again. I then compounded that by selecting a load of books for the children which got heavier and heavier as I walked home until I thought my back was about to break – bet it’s stiff tomorrow, so that was silly, but I did hit more than my specified target of steps for the day. 🙂

The children had had a good day, going to the local park with Lucy & co in the morning and spending the afternoon out in the garden under my Dad’s care. They’d been grazing all day with all the fruit in the house eaten, all the bread and a load of cereal consumed so were not in the market for any tea so we tidied up, watched Shaun The Sheep together and then they got their pjs on and I sat and read them the whole pile of about 10 books I’d brought home.

Ady arrived home during all this with a half dozen fertilised eggs so we can have a go at Hatchwatch II. He’d found a local farm with free range chickens and been to talk to the farmer about the whole thing. He’s seen the farmer’s set up for hatching and talked to him about some of the errors we might have made last time leading to our zero percent success rate. So tonight we’ve set it all up again and have six eggs hoping to become chicks in three weeks time.

I can’t quite believe it’s Friday again already tomorrow, we have a few things we need to do but I’m going to aim to get them done first thing and spend the day doing nice things with the children, today felt like a long time away from them.