This is a Library Hotel for Library People

Next time you're in New York, how about checking in to The Library Hotel?

"Each of the ten guestroom floors at the Library Hotel in New York City is dedicated to one of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System: Social Sciences, Literature, Languages, History, Math & Science, General Knowledge, Technology, Philosophy, The Arts and Religion. Each of the sixty exquisitely appointed rooms have been individually adorned with a collection of art and books relevant to one distinctive topic within the category of the floor it belongs to".

Which floor suits you?

(I picked this up on the Kimbooktu blog).

Fraser

Jono and Nelly sent us these lovely pictures of Fraser:

Isn't he a hunny?

Torturing myself

I'm torturing myself with dreams of being able to visit this Henry VIII: Man and Monarch exhibition at the British Library . . . having to make do with listening to podcasts and watching snippets of video.

I've not long ago read David Starkey's excellent Henry: Virtuous Prince which I blogged about on the library blog. Trying to get our hands on the video for the library.

Zits was good this weekend

Click on the picture to see it bigger

Back to School

Putting the flags out because the kids have all gone back to school today. The teachers had monday off as the ANZAC Day public holiday which no one else got! Then Tuesday was a 'pupil free day' (wish we had Borrower-free days as often as teachers get Pupil-free days).

More validation

Love Letter to Libraries Part 2

Loving what I do

A couple of things I came across today that validate my work as a Librarian:


and a blog post, Love Letter to Libraries from one of my favourite blogs, Citizen Reader

Kitchen renovations - the continuing saga

We have been taking up the flooring. With the U-shaped kitchen having been removed, we need to put new flooring down. Under the slate-look lino that has been on the floor, we have found two layers of lino tiles. We have been having to use a heat gun to prise them up one by one, it's been going on for weeks but the boys have done a fair bit this holidays and we are almost finished.

We are thinking of covering the floor in a product called 'Allure'. It's kind of lino but looks like wood. It comes in strips or planks which stick together along one sticky edge. It's easy to DIY because it's easy to cut to shape. We looked at real wood and wood laminate but have been told the real wood scratches too easily and wood laminate can't take a lot of water.

Ishbel's Wellies

She wouldn't pose inside them!

Ishbel's Wellies

Knowing we were off to a swamp, we dived into Target the night before to get Ishbel a pair of wellies. Not just an ordinary pair of wellies; these are beautiful, with love hearts all over.

It's had me teaching her Billy Connelly's welly boot song though:

Secret Swamping

Yesterday I went on a walk to the Secret Swamp with thirteen other people for a couple of hours. We saw three swamps.

We started at Katoomba Library and took a bus to Darwin's Walk which starts from Wilson Park at Wentworth Falls.


The Aboriginal Interpreter Ranger from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Janelle, first showed us things that aboriginal people would have used.

Janelle showing us coolamon, woomera, shields and boomerangs

Then we started on our walk. Every now and again we would stop somewhere and the Council Environment man, Mike, would tell us something about the enviroment or Janelle would show us bush tucker.

Janelle telling us about bush tucker

Mike told us about the Giant Dragonfly and the Blue Mountains skink, both endangered and about how important the swamps are, how they are in danger and how they can be protected.

Mike pointing out a yabby in the creek (Ishbel closest to camera)

We walked along until we came to a pool and a cave. Janelle had brought some ochre with her and she showed us how to wet it and make a paint which we then put on ourselves. Janelle said her daughter used to put it on as eyeshadow and lipstick so some of the other girls did the same. I made a band on my wrist with it. Janelle said ochre is a good sunscreen.

Janelle, Aniko and Mike with the Secret Swamp kids. You can't see it in this unfortunately blurry photo,
but most of the kids are wearing ochre on their faces (Ishbel front far right)

From there we headed back to the bus. Janelle, Mike, Mum and I had to walk back to the car. Mike said it would only take ten minutes and it took about twenty.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

This was a library school holiday activity. Aniko, our Children's and Young Adult's Team Leader, 'persuaded' me to put Ishbel's name down and then put me down as a staff helper. We had a really nice morning. The weather was perfect (it's been miserable all week) and we learned heaps. Aniko wrote a piece for our library blog:

We all met at Katoomba library at 10am. Our bus driver, Dusan, had a problem about counting the number of seats in his bus and we ended up having to take the Ranger's car as well. Of course you can well imagine that part of a ‘secret’ is going on a bus and looking back as you speed off thinking, thank goodness my mother isn’t coming! Why does she always look weepy when I board a bus? And it is even better to be sitting next to your BEST friend with a haversack full of food that you never get to eat at home!

BUT I guess from a kid’s perspective, you do need to worry about these lady Librarians . . . they are not as stern as those who get left behind in the library telling you that you still owe $5.50 on that book which was late, which you never really got to read anyway. I got to sit next to the older one. She looked a bit hip in that ‘dry as a bones’ . . . didn’t anyone tell her that you don’t wear that type of gear when you go swamping! The other one with the blond hair was a bit of a cutey . . . it would be great to have a mum like her!

Anyway we headed off and did the normal carry one in a bus . . . windows up and down, trying out to see if the back door actually opened, giving the driver lots of noise . . . good job he didn’t go on about the usual tourist jargon on your route to your destination. And yes, we got there . . . Charles Darwin Walk . . . a creek full of yabbies, skinks, dragonflies, mud glorious mud, bush tucker food, waterfalls, fresh swamp water, hills that took for ever to climb, and yes you’ve got it, we emerged with painted faces, gumboots full of water and two an half hours of ‘full on’ information overload on the best swamps in the world at our back yard.

That guy, Mike, knew more about swamps than I could have believed. He tried getting us to learn the Latin words for bush specimens but I thought it sounded like we were in some foreign country forgetting how to speak English!

The bush Ranger was a lady called Janelle. She talked about her people and ancestries and showed us how to cut large bark out of trees and swing a club, throw a spear and spin a boomerang. I liked what she had to say about her country and how her people knew better than us in how to care for the environment.

Would I do it again? . . . I sure would - even if we had to go with the librarians again!

Halfway through the holidays

It's coming up for the second week of the school holidays which began with the Easter long weekend.

On Saturday we had Karen, Dan and Xavier and Roey and Peter to lunch. Karen and Dan brought Dan's grandmother, Diana and Roey and Peter brought Pete's mum, Pat and we enjoyed a nice lunch. Roey and Pete also brought their dog, Leo, to play with Bella and Josie but he seemed not to enjoy being out-numbered by the girls and spent his time whining at the back door.

Robbie was busy on a couple of days last week. On Tuesday he arranged a visit down to the city with some of the kids he shared a bus with in Japan and the next day he met up with one of the girls he met on the way home from Japan and they went to the Royal Easter Show together. He's been keeping in touch with everyone through SMS-ing and Facebook.

Ishbel has spent quite a bit of time with her mate Zanny. Zanny has either been at our place or Ishbel has been up at Zannys. A play day here leads to an overnight stay there. Here are the girls enjoying a sleepover here. For once they were asleep before 9pm (it was after midnight last night when Britney was here!)

I had the day off on Friday and, with the weather forecast for the weekend and all this week being bleak, decided to take Ishbel to the Royal Easter Show. We caught the train just after nine and headed off to Homebush.

We decided we would take it in turns to choose what we looked at next. Steering Ishbel carefully through all the show rides, we started off at the cattle and horse sheds. We got chatting to a couple of women grooming a very pretty little pony called Special Girl. We also enjoyed looking at the cattle. There was one little calf, Elmo, who was only 2 weeks old. He must have been born at the show?

Next (my choice) we went to see the dogs. Disappointingly there were no Border Collies, Mastiffs or Irish Wolfhounds although we did see some really cute Jack Russells and some Russian Deerhounds - very snooty looking beasts.

Ishbel was determined to go to the showbag place next. She'd wanted a Saddleclub bag but got waylaid and bought a Garfield one instead.

Next door was the arts and crafts shed. We enjoyed some paintings, some calligraphy (a beautiful rendition of In Flanders Fields), the cakes and knitting. Ishbel got her name done by chinese ladies for framing later. The farming district exhibits were there too. I was particularly taken by the Central District display - this trout is made of apples with wool for the water. It was truly stunning.

Late in the afternoon we realised we hadn'[t seen the cats so, via the sheep and pigs, we headed back over the other side of the showgrounds to the cats. Unfortunately, it is a small building and the crowds were such that it was very hard to see any of the cats. We did see a Burmilla like our Abigail though.

This weekend Jamie had an AFL game. They won their game - for the first time in 4 years I think they said!!! Jamie was planning to go to the Easter Show with some of his friends this week but they've had a late change of plan and are going to Luna Park instead.

Ian, after a month off, is going back to work tomorrow. Hoo-ray! He saw the plastic surgeon on Tuesday who did not see why Ian should need a skin graft and dispensed with all the fiddly dressings that have been on his ankle. He still has to see the hand specialist in early May and has to wear a splint until then. Meanwhile he still cannot drive so tomorrow will set off on public transport. It'll take a bit longer than in the car, so Sue has put him down for shorter days until after we've seen the hand guy.

Kemp's Creek photos

See Karen and Dan's blog for some photos of hot fire training day the boys and I did at Kemp's Creek a few weeks ago. Thanks Dan.

Doing the washing

Must remember not to wear these knickers when I go sumo wrestling.

Must remember, must remember, must remember . . .

As if I don't have enough trouble . . .

when doors have just one instruction!

Gillian on fire!

My office companion, Gillian, tracked me down on Saturday afternoon after the Foundation Day parade. She was with Clare and Emily, her daughter and granddaughter. We were trying to encourage Emily to try on my firefighting helmet but she wouldn't have a bar of it - even when "Nanny" had a go.
Clare took a few photos and I asked her to forward them to me as Gillian "couldn't remember" my email address. Luckily, and to Gillian's disgust, I found a business card in my wallet and Clare was able to send the photos to me.

Gillian is grumping around the office about the pictures and how I bullied her into putting on my gear but I think you'll agree she looks like she's having fun!

What a week!

We started the week off with a trip to the GP (again) on Monday afternoon for a progress check for Ian. His wound was looking a bit green when the dressing was taken off so a swab was taken and Sue, our GP, arranged for us to come back on Wednesday for another check. Ian's wrist was still very, very sore so she also arranged for him to have an XRay. He was so long that I had to leave him there and come home to collect Rob who had a shift at McDonalds. Then back to the radiology place to collect Ian.

On Tuesday I was at work for the morning but had a long-standing appoointment of my own with Dr Taper who, as I posted before, doesn't want to see me again. Jamie has AFL training on Tuesday at Penrith. He gets a lift down with other parents and we take the boys home. Rather than go all the way back up the mountains from Penrith I decided to stay down. I thought I might have time to go to the pictures until it was time to pick him up but got sidetracked and missed the start of the movie so went to the training ground with a copy of Revolutionary Road, our next book group book. It was chucking down the rain so I rang to see if Jamie had been picked up - he told me he was waiting for Ian (who isn't supposed to be driving) to come and get him. He'd not thought to let me know I could come home!

On Wednesday things were looking better with Ian's wound and Sue took the stitches out but the XRay of his wrist showed there may be a little break and she wanted him to have a CT scan to make sure. We have Worker's Compensation here which not only covers you for accidents at the workplace, it also covers you for your journey to and from work so Ian's treatment can be charged to the WorkCover authority. They had to give authorisation for the CT scan, however. We just had to get the paper work in and Ian's work hadn't sent it to us. We spent the afternoon chasing it up. Two forms of 3 pages each. We didn't get a case number until Thursday but Sue doesn't work on Thrusdays so when we saw her on Friday she had to ring and ask for authorisation for the CT scan before we could book Ian in. It took them 30 or more minutes to ring back saying it could go ahead.

Thursday was a big day for Robbie who was the recipient of an award at school. They make a big deal at his school about these things and we'd been invited to a special assembly but hadn't thought any of us, including Rob would be there - he was supposed to be playing cricket for the school but it was rained off - so we didn't book seats. Thursday was my only full day at work last week so I didn't feel I could take more time off and Ian had been forbidden officially to drive.

On Friday, while we were outside the GPs taking a phone call we were accosted by a woman wanting to know how Ian was doing. "What business is it of hers?" I thought then she explained she, Alison, had been on scene when he had his accident and had called the ambulance. We asked her what had happened, Ian not having any memory of the impact. She said he'd swerved to avoid the car but it had hit the bike and Ian had gone sailing over her bonnet! It was nice to be able to thank her for getting Ian help (one of 5 or 6 calls to 000 the ambos told Ian) and she'd given a statement to the police too.

I parked Ian at the library for an hour or so until my lunch break. It gave him a chance to choose some books to get him through the next week. Sue has told him he won't be going back to work before Easter.

On Friday evening Ishbel had her little friend, Zanny, staying overnight. I didn't see anything of her really. I had book group to go to. I quickly cobbled together dinner before going out and was home near midnight then Robert and I were up early to go and help out at the Springwood Foundation Day. As we did last year, we helped out with crowd control during the Fun Run (didn't look like a lot of fun to me!) and the parade. I asked the Captain if I could be in the truck for the parade. He didn't look very happy to be asked but eventually said yes and I had a ball, waving to all my fans! We travelled with the flashing lights on and I got to press the siren button a couple of times . . . no one told me about the loud speaker system until it was all over though!

I met up with Karen after we took our truck back to the station and we had a wander up the street and back. It took us ages. First she bumped into someone she knew then me. There was a point there where we took over 10 paces without meeting someone and it was really wierd!!!!

In the evening we went to Nigel and Amanda's house for dinner. They moved house a bit before Christmas and they've been promising to have the gang round and have been copping a lot of ribbing because it took them sooooooo long to get round to inviting us. We were hoping to see their new grandson, Aiden, but he had gone to his other Granny's for her birthday.

It was up early again to go out to training (but not as early as it might have been had it not been the end of Daylight Savings). At the last training night the gang had gone out along a track and found a tree fallen. We're not allowed to use chainsaws in the dark so they decided to go and deal with the tree today. Off we set down the track but it's pretty wet out there after rain ALL week and the truck was in danger of being bogged. After getting most of the crew to get out and walk in to the tree, Bruce the truck driver, David and I, who was PC driver, ended up reversing all the way back along the track to the road and approached by the other side. We found another two trees down. Lots of chainsawing for David but a tad boring for the rest of us. Never mind, we had lots of fun running away from leeches and getting the vehicles muddy.

This afternoon Jamie went to his friend Nick's house. Graeme and Kim are in an historical re-enactment society and Graeme has been doing some battle training with Nick, Jamie and Scott. As I arrived to pick Jamie up a few hours later it was to find that he'd expressed an interest in learning more about ENGLISH 12th Century history, the Templar Knights, etc. Kim and I voiced our disgust long and loud!!!

Just waiting for Poirot to finish on TV so I can go to bed and we can start all over again!