The end of the road

I’ve had difficulties with Blogger recently so have decided to move our blog to here (my book group blog was deemed a spam blog and was shut down from 9 November until yesterday).

I will try and make subscriptions for family members to get new posts via email. If you don't get one soon, it's as easy as clicking on the Subscribe button at the right of the new blog and entering your email address. Posting comments is also easier – just click on the appropriate link in the post or in the emailed post.

No more will be posted here after Saturday 9th January 2010. Thank you Blogger, it was (mostly) fun.

TGIF - Generation gap

The Generations

• The Silent Generation are people born before 1946
• The Baby Boomers are people born between 1946 and 1959
• Generation X are people born between 1960 and 1979
• Generation Y are people born between 1980 and 1995

Why do we call the last one generation Y?

I did not know, but a cartoonist explains it eloquently below...

Learned something new today?

Rain, rain, go away

Click here for a video clip of the drains overflowing - the water is at the front of the building, outside the Council Office, but just the same as the one Patou and I were watching landing on the Courier van at the back of the building.

It's raining again and I hear thunder - Ian, Rob, Ishbel and Zanny are having a day at the beach and have gone to Manly.

Rita (the Library Courier) has just let Gillian know that there are now two raincoats upstairs . . . just in case.

Normal transmission will be resumed shortly . . .

We had a bit of excitement at work yesterday afternoon when we had a severe rainstorm and the library was flooded.

Patou and I were sat at my office window, happily watching a large spout of water coming off the roof and landing on the Library courier's van when the "Help!" call came from the branch staff upstairs.

We dashed up, armed with buckets, to help out - drips from the roof in the Reference area. The photocopiers drenched, water streaming in at the front doors. I ran to get a broom and bucket and mop and began to try brushing the water away from the front door.

Gillian appeared, absolutely drenched. What had she been doing out in the rain? She hadn't been outside at all - she had been in the Children's area, hurling books off the shelves and over her shoulder as she tried to save them from a torrent of rain coming through the roof on to the shelves and floor.

With water coming through the light fittings in several parts of the building, the library was unsafe and we closed it. It took a while for the library to empty though - we couldn't chuck the borrowers out into THAT!

We spent the last part of the day drying off books, furniture, mopping water out of the carpte tiles and moving furniture so the wet carpet underneath could dry.

Today the library is closed and there are big fans blowing to try and dry the carpet before it gets too smelly.

At some stage all the books in Reference and Children's will need to go back on the shelves.

I have suggested we put the books back in colour order as I have recently done my bookshelves at home

- they will look much prettier and, though I can't find what I'm looking for, I do find other stuff I'd forgotten about! And customers come in asking if we have that book with the red cover . . .

Happy New Year

Ian and I had a quiet Hogmanay. All three kids were out for the evening. Jamie went into the City with some of his friends, Rob was at a Scout friend's house and Ishbel was at a sleepover birthday party. Both Ishbel and Rob had not been well, Ishy with a cold and Rob with a stomach upset so we weren't surprised when we got a call sometime after 11pm to come and collect Ishbel. Up until then Ian and I were at home with Sharon and Holly. Holly had been planning to be in the City with Jamie and his pals but she and Sharon had had the same stomach upset as Rob and were feeling a bit weak and watery so they came round to our house and we played board games.

I have been sitting up in Ishbel's room most of today, listening to a book on tape (hers is the only stereo with a cassette player). I have book group on Sunday. Usually we have a late Christmas lunch early in January where we organise what books we are going to read in the coming year, but don't discuss a book and have our discussion meeting on the third Sunday as usual. This year, however, there has been a change of plan which passed me by and we're having the discussion this Sunday and the lunch on the 17th! The book shops are closed and all the library had was the talking book. It's been a nice relaxing day, I did some cross stitch too - a Peter Rabbit alphabet I bought when Ishbel was an infant!!!!!

On Wednesday I was in town with some girlfriends. I won two tickets to a play, The Book of Everything, at the Belvoir Theatre in the City. I'd invited my friend Heather to come too. I'd initially rung Sharon to ask her to come with me, she'd recently taken me to something at the same theatre, but she and Holly already had tickets so I invited Heather instead and we arranged to go to the same performance and arranged to go all together and to have dinner in town afterwards. Unfortunately, as mentioned already, Sharon and Holly were unwell and couldn't go so she gave up her tickets and I asked Catherine along and Heather's mother (who is over from Canada) was able to take advantage of Holly's concession ticket.

The Book of Everything is a book we read together for book group in early 2008 so we were pleased to be able to go. And it was really, really, really good. We were a bit concerned to see lots of children in the foyer - the book, while ultimately about optimism, features domestic violence and we wondered how the children would deal with it but the production was a very humorous one and I'd really love to take Ishbel, if not the other two.

As planned, we went in search of dinner after the play, the lady sitting next to Catherine suggested we go to Crown street where we would find lots of restaurants. Fortunately Catherine had brought Ken - her TomTom navigation thingy - because we hadn't a clue where we were going. We thought a Wednesday night would be quiet - we were sooooooo wrong and ended up waiting 20+ minutes to get a table at a Thai restaurant. Luckily it was a good meal and worth the wait in the end. It was after midnight before we got back to Springwood.

TGIF - Three Men on a Hike

Three men were hiking through a forest when they came upon a large raging, Violent river.Needing to get to the other side, the first man prayed: 'God, please give me the strength to cross the river.'Poof! ... God gave him big arms and strong legs and he was able to swimacross in about 2 hours, having almost drowned twice. After witnessing that, the second man prayed:'God, please give mestrength and the tools to cross the river' Poof! .. God gave him a rowboat and strong armsand strong legs and hewas able to row across in about an hourafter almost capsizing once. Seeing what happened to the first two men, the third man prayed: 'God, please give me the strength, the tools and the intelligenceto cross the river' Poof! .. He was turned into a woman. She checked the map, hiked onehundred yards up stream and walked across the bridge. 'If at first you don't succeed, do it the way your wife told you!'