I often feel really uninspired blogging on the days I work all day each week. Not because I don’t enjoy my job, I do but it feels like a tiny thing I compared to the rest of my week. I hesitate to use the word ‘respite’ because that indicates I need some sort of rest from my Home Ed lifestyle and I really don’t but I really do feel like I’m becomming a whole other person when I pin my library badge on. I get the same feeling at my Waste Prevention Advisor course. I guess it’s a feeling of ‘walking alone’. I’ve never lived alone, been half of a couple for nearly half my life and a mother for two thirds of that time. So it’s rare to go somewhere without an Ady, a Davies or a Scarlett and not be anybodies girlfriend, wife or mother. And there wasn’t much of a gap inbetween that starting and me still being someone’s daughter or sister really. I think I’m a fairly strong character, not really defined by the relationships to those around me but the physical proximity of some or all of them to me most of the time does probably colour my actions fairly heavily.
At school and later on at work I have always felt more me, judged on my own credentials and the face I choose to present. I like the camaraderie of a workplace, the in-jokes, the finding out how to work well as a team. I quite like the order of a certain workload to be complete in a certain timeframe, I like helping people (I’ve always worked in service providing roles so satisfying customers has always been a key part of all my jobs) and I enjoy meeting and interacting with different people. My Home Ed life incarnation has elements of that but remains something of a ‘work in progress’. It definitely feeds my heart and soul but there were also gaps in meeting my other needs which these various outside things I have started to pick up over the last couple of years have met for me. Davies and Scarlett clearly get the same needs met at their Badgers, Rainbows etc groups and Ady gets them from his job. It’s utterly right that we don’t rely on each other to provide everything to everyone.
Ooh, don’t really know where that all came from, talk about stream of consciousness! 😆
So, I was saying, I don’t have much to blog about on my working days because it’s kind of mundane in the details and I have no real idea what the kids are up to in my absence. I can tell you what they’ve been playing with or eaten as it’s usually still evident or they tell me but I don’t know what conversations they’ve had, what questions they asked, what crazy tangent based on something small and inconsequential might have led to today’s new thing they learnt or became interested in. Which is often what makes up the main content of my blogposts.
So I’ll do a more detailed account of my day at work instead.
Anyway. I went off to work – Ady and the kids dropped me off as my car is at the garage with various mechanics trying to work out how to open the bonnet. I did some tidying with the others before we opened the library and topics of conversation included old people having sex and at what age they stop – if at all, times any of us have been on telly and a challenge of tidying a large print paperback spinner from the bottom up so needing to use reverse alphabetical order.
My first hour was on the Enquiry Desk. I spent some time trying to find books on Amazon and on the library catalogue pertaining to Maharajas as we’re going to the V&A museum next week to see the exhibition and wanted to read something to the kids before we meant to give it some context and link in. I failed to find much at all and got really cross when all the books I did find were listed on the library catalogue but only available through the Schools Library Service. More on that later.
I ordered a few books in for various borrowers and did some paperwork chasing up reservations that were long outstanding.
I had teabreak with Nightmare Colleague. We chatted about a workshop she’s doing at a local wool shop she lives nearby that runs an afterschool craft club Monday to Friday for kids. They do knitting, sewing, fabric collages etc – it sounds fab! She does it once a week but was saying she struggles with the children not behaving. Can’t decide if that is her or unruly kids 😆 I was dreading the fact I was rota’d to be on lunch with her particularly as I didn’t have my car to go and retire to but Y changed the rota when she realised I was on break and lunch with her – bless her :).
Next I had an hour of doing my own work – I sent a couple of work related emails – one about setting up a coffee morning event with Reading Groups run from Lancing library, one about the Late Night Christmas Shopping event craft activties and one confirming I am happy to work at Shoreham Library next week. I sent out some letters about overdue items and receipted a book we’re borrowing for one of our lenders from the British Library.
Next I was on the counter so dealt with the delivery – books and things coming back to us from other libraries and books and things coming to us for our borrowers from other libraries. Some to go back on shelves, some to be put aside for phoning people to tell them it had arrived. Also issuing and discharging books for anyone coming to the counter.
Then I had lunch 😉
I was back on the counter after lunch. All of the delivery had been dealt with so it was packing up stuff ready to be collected in the morning instead – white slips on things just going back to libraries, pink slips on ones that are for reservations. We have boxes for Shoreham and Worthing – our closest libraries and ones we get stuff brought back to us from most frequently, a third box for stuff going to head office to be sorted before being put in boxes to be sent back and finally a box left open for items going to libraries which are after us on the van’s route each morning so the driver just drops those things off along his way.
I chatted to the librarian who was on the desk about the Schools Library Service and how annoying it is that we can’t access it as Home Educators as I know other authorities do allow HEors to use their service and also that as a ‘normal’ borrower it is very annoying that I can see multiple copies of some books on the system for Schools use but no copies on the catalogue for other borrowers. I could put in requests for copies to be bought for the public service but of course in this instance they wouldn’t be in time for next week’s V&A visit anyway. And there are budget cuts in spending on new books anyway so no guarantee they’d buy them at all. She was equally unimpressed and asked why I didn’t make a big fuss about the inequality side of HE kids being denied access to resources. She also was shocked that we don’t get any funding when we save the council so much money in not taking up school places. I agreed but explained why I wasn’t willing to make a fuss and risk outing myself but if we do end up registered I will certainly be making all of those noises and demands. I also told her my interesting statistic that there are about 20,000 state schools in the UK and at least that many HE families so there are more homes where children are being educated than institutions! She emailed the Schools Library Service (SLS) manager to ask whether we could access the service and the woman rang her to say no. She cited other authorities and the woman insisted they would have to pay. Apparently the SLS is funded out of the Schools budget (LA / Education) which is why schools have free access to it. Independant schools can access it at a cost so if I wanted to access it on the same basis that they do that could be looked at. It would be £30 per 14 items for one term and I didn’t ask because I wouldn’t use it but I’m guessing there would be hoops to jump through in proving our status and the risk of our information not being kept confidential too.
Tea break and then an hours Shelving. I spent more time chatting than shelving really but did have a burst of efficiency in the last 10 minutes of the hour and cleared everything anyway.
Finally I had half an hour on the counter at the very end of the day.
I was expecting Dad to pick me up from work in my car but he didn’t arrive. I rang round my parents house and my house and finally reached my Dad. Clearly there was some crossed wires as he’d rung the mechanic at 330pm to discover the bonnet still hadn’t been opened but hadn’t thought to let me know or come and pick me up in his van instead. I was there with two heavy bags of books and it was dark and raining so I really didn’t fancy the 15 minute walk home and Dad wasn’t offering 🙁 I rang Mum back and she did offer to come and pick me up but it would mean the kids sitting in the back of her car with no car seats (and also coming out in the rain) and she wouldn’t be prepared to leave them home while she came for me. So I rang Ady who luckily was only 20 minutes away on his way home so I went back in the library again and waited for Ady to come and get me instead.
Had a chat and cup of tea with Mum, put the chickens away in the pouring rain, made the kids some tea (this created all sorts of fussing – one wanted rice, the other wanted pasta, it was getting late and I was fed up. They agreed to toss a coin and then the loser decided if they couldn’t have what they wanted they’d have nothing at all! Finally got them sorted and fed.)
Ady cooked an epic dinner of pheasant and potatoes which took way longer than he expected so we didn’t end up eating til about 1030pm. I read the kids the last few chapters of Littlenose which they have enjoyed enough for me to order the rest of the series and then . They took forever to go to sleep which was annoying.
We watched River Cottage that we’d taped from earlier but ended abruptly when Scarlett had sat on the remote control and turned onto some other channel about 10 minutes from the end :rolls:
And that was Thursday.