Sausages!

for want of a better title 😆

I worked today, all day. It was very windy, infact I think about half the borrowers who came into the library didn’t mean to, they just got blown that way. It got fairly wearing after about the 27th one came in with the same witty comment about the weather though and my personal amusement at giving the same stock answer of ‘it’s not lovely is it?’ started to wear thin after the 38th time I’d said it :roll:. When I was a checkout chick at B&Q I once compiled a list of ‘things that B&Q checkout operators would love to say to customers, but can’t because we’d lose our jobs’ – I was reminded of some of them today 😆

I did a new display – the new years resolutions one which included printed off ideas of ‘things I am going to do this year’ and single phrases like ‘travel’ ‘learn a language’ ‘get fitter’ ‘be more green’ and so on with loads of relevant books, dvds and audio books displayed had been there nearly a month and it’s not feeling so new year-y now it’s practically February. Thanks to the dewey decimal system (which actually I am starting to get my head round and keep surprising myself by knowing what number books are under when people ask where they’ll find them ‘ cookery, that’ll be 641.5, ah yes books on poetry -you’ll find them at 821 and so on) there are some books which just get hidden away in dusty corners where no one ever goes in the library but actually would probably get loads of issues (that’s taken out lots) if they were more visible. One such genre is the Torey Hayden, Dave Pelzer type non-fiction books about abused children. I know they are popular, they often make the Top Ten lists of books and very occassionally someone will pluck up the courage to come and ask for one of them but they largely get missed as they live upstairs at Lancing filed with ‘362 social welfare’. So I pulled a load out, along with some similar titles shelved within the biographies section and did a big display of them under the heading ‘stories of sorrow, stories of despair, stories of hope…’ while I was photocopying something two of the books got borrowed so clearly that display is going to be a winner :).

I also spent some time at work printing off information about The Kite Runner. We are reading it for Book Group this month and as Brenda who normally runs it is on holiday I am running the group. I read the book way back last year when it first came out, sort of too soon to want to read it again but too long ago to remember it very well in great detail so I printed off the wikipedia entry on it, some guides from the publisher, the authors bio from his website and a list of ‘reading group points for discussion’ to go through prior to book group.

Lucy and The Rs were here in the morning and my Dad was here in the afternoon. I know from the layers of stuff that they played with geomags, did drawings, did some dressing up and played some X box, so I spent the first ten minutes or so going mental at Davies and Scarlett about the state of the house :(. They did a fair bit of the tidying up, I helped with some and they had a late dinner as a result. Ady was really late home (due to weather) and I’d already decided he’d been killed in a car crash and was planning my funeral outfit but didn’t want to ring just incase he didn’t answer his phone and then I truly knew he was dead. He did ring to say he’d be another five or ten minutes and was infact a further half an hour (weather related traffic again) but I’d already got the outfit planned so was able to focus on other things instead by then. Kids had a bath, I got utterly fed up with everyone and shouted lots before going to get dinner started.

I then calmed down enough to brush Scarlett’s hair, finish reading about Otto the penguin and read the first chapter about Suzy the car (Cat who wanted to go home) before having a long bubbly bath and a glass of wine and restoring my inner peace once more. Working all day is really tricky as I get the very worst of the children at the beginning and ends of the day, they get the worst of me, I feel guilty that I’ve been out and actually quite enjoyed being at work and then feel I’m being punished for that by coming home to a messy house and hungry children so have to dash around for another hour or so before finally sitting down. I’ve no idea how working mothers retain their sanity quite frankly, although I suppose the kids would be in school so the house would be tidy or I’d be earning enough to pay for childcare that did their dinner and read their bedtime stories anyway. You can’t be all things to all people and trying to pull it off simply means you end up being very little to anybody :(. We all ended the day as friends again though :).

Finally today a load of ebay listings ended. Ady bought a box full of Hornby stuff in a charity shop last year for £3 including track and trains and stuff and we’ve been meaning to ebay it for ages. We split it into several lots and made over £50 altogether from it :). I’ve already been pissed off with a buyer who has got three items and wanted a postage discount and then to quibble about the price of postage and why I don’t use a courier instead of royal mail (yes I know it’s cheaper but then I’d need to stay in all day to wait for collection and I’m not paying for the postage – you are! :roll:), so I sort of anticipate that one not going forward in a simple manner. Ah well.