One word? When seven would do…

My car wouldn’t start this morning. Ady tried it early and I tried it again when I got up, including a hefty spray of damp start on it but it was having none of it. I suspect it is nothing too dreadful and is just a cold / damp / being left standing for over a week type issue, which let’s face it it has endured extremes of cold and damp for. I’m hoping it will start tomorrow during the day now the snow and ice has almost completely thawed and I can take it for a good run and get it happy again (in order to leave it back on the drive for a week while we go away ;)). If not we’ll get it properly looked at when we get back from holiday. As it happens other that meaning we didn’t get to Badgers this week it has not been too inconvenient to not have a car.

So I rang Dad and he dropped me into work (less than a ten minute round trip) before coming back here to look after Davies and Scarlett. Ady had a meeting in Dorset first thing this morning but was hoping to be home around lunchtime so Dad was just supposed to be here for the morning.

My morning was very dossy – I spent the whole time in a meeting with the Children’s Services Librarian and the Childrens Services Development Librarian (Important and Very Important) planning Chatterbooks. After lots of nagging, offering my time voluntarily and constantly pushing it through I have finally got it all signed off and dates set and budgets and everything :). I first asked to do a children’s reading group about 18 months ago and was knocked back but thanks to a very keen young librarian and not giving up even when I’d been told no I have managed to make it happen. It’s not exactly what I wanted which was a monthly kids reading group on the same principle as the adults monthly reading group I go to where we all take the same book away to read and come back the following month to chat about it. But it’s a pretty good initial compromise as what we’re doing is setting up a model to learn from and experiment with which will hopefully open up the door for what I really want in the future. I’ve got approval for a six week, weekly hour long sessions. We’re going for up to 12 children, aged 7-9 years and I’ve done loads of research to plan themes for each session, activities and ideas for how it can run.

So today I delivered all my plans to the Important and Very Important people, approved the posters and leaftlets which are now out on show, wrote letters to go out to parents for permission for their children to attend, talked about what materials we’ll need and worked out a budget for that, looked at various books we could use, talked about what my plan and aims were and how I’d like to run the sessions and then planned the first two sessions properly with the subsequent four loosely planned to be firmed up properly with the actual children at the first session. The Very Important Person will be attending the first two and we bounced well off each other so decided we’ll do it double-act style which I think will work well and then I may well have Guest Appearances from other Important People for the other sessions if I want them (or if as I secretly suspect they continue to fret a little about me and my maverick tendancies 😉 :lol:).

Then it was lunchtime :).

I spoke to Ady at lunchtime and it became apparent that he was having a Very Bad Day at work (he is taking on the role of Tom, who leaves tomorrow, in the interim period before Tom’s replacement starts. So Ady being on holiday next week is a bit of a nightmare for his work as there is noone doing either Ady’s or Tom’s job. There is a sort of mass handover trying to be squashed into these last few days and a meeting with one of their clients had gone very badly with Ady’s MD getting a real dressing down from the buyer which was unpleasant for all who witnessed it.) He was going to be in meetings all day long which meant he wouldn’t be getting home at lunchtime so Dad could go home after all. I told him to ring Dad and tell him and if it was a problem for Dad to ring me back and I’d have to leave work and come home. I didn’t hear back so assumed it had been sorted out. Infact it had and Dad stayed all day which we really appreciated and I think Dad and the children had a nice day together and foraged for food as a pack! 😆

So my afternoon involved a brief stint on the Enquiry Desk before going for another meeting in the office. This time it was the quarterly review of my PDR (Personal development review). That also went well – I’ve been put forward for 4 training sessions in the next 6 weeks or so – a couple of IT based ones to use Word in all it’s full glory, another first aid course and one on family history and geneaology. The Chatterbooks stuff is going down as development despite it being in my own time and having dashed off a quick reply to a plea for volunteers to write for a ‘library blog’ a couple of weeks ago that is also going down as something I’m doing. I did ask, somewhat too late if I should have cc’d Important People in on that and was told I should have so I suspect I may have ruffled some feathers actually but never mind. Even I can’t be a threat to those who really run the library when I’m only there for 11 hours a week ;). I am aware that pushing myself forward for things does put people’s backs up though even though it is always done with the very best intentions (and a bit of self interest of course ;)). But was basically told to carry on doing what I’m doing and thanked for all I do, which is always nice to hear :).

I then did a very brief stint on the counter before it was home time :). Dad had rung to ask if I wanted him to come and pick me up but Ady was almost home by then so I waited for him rather than have Dad leave the kids home along in the dark. I chatted to colleagues while I waited and we got to talking about the kids in the back of the work van the other week and then one colleague told another about our indoor / outdoor snowball fight and snow in the kids’ bath which she had thought was hilarious and had prompted her to comment that Davies and Scarlett would never know what it would be like to have had a ‘normal mother’ 😆

Ady arrived and we got home, profusely thanked Dad for a full day’s Grandfathering and then fed hungry children, tidied up the evidence of a full days home without anyone asking for things to be put away before more stuff was got out and read this rather lovely book (which brought a tear to my eye and a lump to my throat) which led to discussion about apartheid, education, missionary schools, discrimination and being prepared to protest, fight or die for what you believe in. Powerful stuff.

Ady’s bad day was topped off by him leaving the playroom door open and the cat pooing in there so he went to bed feeling the whole world was out to piss him off (except me of course). I’m going to bed expecting sunshine to start my car tomorrow and a day filled with getting everything packed up ready to go away on Saturday :).