Boo!

Ian has developed the 'flu and won't be able to have his surgery which was scheduled for tomorrow. He rang the specialist rooms today and his surgery will now be on 1st July!

Phew!

Jamie and I successfully completed our VF (Village Firefighter) assessment on Sunday morning.

We were taken up to St Thomas' school and there had to do two scenarios, an (MVA) motor vehicle accident and a structural fire. We also had to demonstrate how to work with ladders, hauling tools up to the roof of a building (well in this case it was on top of the Big Red Truck). We also had to answer a whole lot of questions to demonstrate underpinning knowledge - a bit disconcerting because the questions asked were from the 1999 course, not from the 2005 workbook I was working from - even Ian knew the answers from drilling me! Got through them OK though.

What a relief to pass, I'd been almost sick with nerves when we gathered at Winmalee RFS in the morning.

Rob didn't do the assessment. With work commitments he'd not been able to attend post course training sessions and didn't feel ready. He also has mid-yearly exams this week.

Weeding

One of my bugbears at work is tatty, out-of-date books not being weeded from the library shelves. Many of my colleagues hate to do away with anything but who wants to read a brown paged, dog-eared something from 1974? When I was in the branches I was quite ruthless and weeded constantly. Now I've found a blog that vindicates my stance.

The Awfullibrarybooks blog is a collection of the worst library holdings. "The items featured here are so old, obsolete, awful or just plain stupid that we are horrified that people might be actually checking these items out and depending on the information. This blog contains actual library holdings. No specific libraries or librarians are named to protect the guilty. Check your shelves, it could be you".

As an EXCELLENT example of their craft, read this entry (the picture is a taster) - it contains a dire warning about what happens when you don't follow a regular weeding program . . .

Something up beat

This might take my mind off the fact that all that time I took updating the Staff Procedure Manual has been wasted because people don't use it when they need it and staff at one branch that will remain nameless but which Karen works very near got it horribly wrong on the weekend and the fact that some bogan just let her kids run riot round the library while she was on the 'pooter and one of them opened the fire escape door and set of the VERY LOUD alarm and then she said her little darling (the only one in the vicinity) didn't do it . . .

This week in brief

• Ian - still waiting for a date for surgery. It might be 3rd June . . . or it might not.
• Heidi - in bed with 'flu until Thursday when she put in a guest appearance at work before having an RDO (rostered day off) on Friday. Wish the weather was nicer; it's chucking down just now. Having to go out Friday night for extra VF training because our assessment (if we are ready) is next weekend.
• Jamie - also not well during the week - came home early from AFL training on Tuesday but perked up again by the morning. School exam results back. Says he's done well in most subjects but Maths posing problems. Looking for a tutor. Also coming to VF training.
• Rob - at work Friday so will miss extra VF training. Has decided to defer assessment.
• Ishbel - commenced flute lessons on Monday. We've had a loan of a flute since January but a breakdown in communication with school meant we didn't sort out the lessons until just now. She's delighted with herself.

We got the flooring in the kitchen/family room finished last weekend and are quite pleased with it - have a look in the Flickr kitchen renovation pics at the very bottom of the blog. Ishbel loves that it is very slidy!

While we were doing the floor, one of our couches had to go outside so we had room to move. The dogs enjoyed having it outside to lie on. Then they started eating the cushions and we had to put them in the garage. Then they started on the couch . . . (the wet stripe isn't dog, it's the rain).

Time for a new one I think . . .

To my sisters

A quote I've just found cataloguing a book :

I just want to say: I'm smiling because you're my siblings, I'm laughing because there's nothing you can do about it.

With love,

Hx

Life in the fast lane

Trawling through my blog feeds this morning I came across this in the (often hilarious) Bookninja blog :



Another of my favourite blogs is the People Reading blog, the author of which travels around taking photographs of people reading, mostly in San Francisco. (Sadly there haven't been any posts there for several weeks and I am missing it). Anyway, as well as the photo and the title of the book being read, there is usually a little blurb about why they chose that book, their favourite books and authors. Don't know why, but I find the whole thing fascinating.

It all got me to wondering about favourite places to read. My favourite place is in bed, and that's not only because we are still waiting for the man to return the furniture he has been renovating for the past 8 months!

Someone's lucky to be still alive!

Conversation with Ishbel on the way up to the bus stop yesterday morning:

Ishbel: How old are you today Mummy? 45?

Mummy: No, one more than that.

Ishbel: Oh well, never mind.

A considerable time later . . .

Ishbel: (with a touch of desperation in her voice) That's still quite young!

Which Simpsons character are you?

Here's something to try out : Which simpsons character are you?

You write down the letters that correspond to how you think. At the end you will have a 4 letter code - use this to decipher which Simpsons character you are.

I turned out to be Homer Simpson???!

Two lovely days

I'll need to keep this brief as I'm writing at work . . .

It was Mother's Day here on Sunday. I was up early, had tea and toast in bed and lovely presents from Ishbel (candle and home-made photo frame) and the boys gave me a Wasgij jigsaw puzzle (have you heard of them? They are great fun - the picture on the box is NOT the picture on the jigsaw - the picture on the jigsaw is either what the people in the picture on the box can see, or what happens next. You have no idea what the picture will be until the last piece goes in). I then went out to RFS training.

Or not training. We are preparing for hazard reduction burns this winter so, for the second Sunday in a row, I was out with a small group of others cutting trails through the bush behind houses in Valley Heights. It's hard work, raking the leaves and branches and bushes away, scraping down to bare earth, leaving a trail a metre or so wide for kilometres along. The birdies appreciated it though, coming down to see what beasties we'd grubbed up.

I got home, very tired, just before 1pm. Rob had left for his soccer match but Ian and the other two had made a baked chicken dinner for me. Yummm. Afterwards, full as a goog as Ian would say, I toddled off to read. I didn't even finish the page . . .

Yesterday, my birthday, started off quietly. I have to take Ian in to catch the 6:55am train these days so we were out early. Even when I moaned that the mini (my mini) that had been in the car yard had gone he didn't say anything about my birthday. I got a call from him once I got home though - my colleague Rita runs Book Express (library service on the train station) and she'd 'reminded' him!!

At work Jeanette, one of our elderly volunteers who usually comes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, had changed her day, gotten up really early and come in with a yummy lemon cake which we devoured at morning tea. Then Rita came with lunch for me - a yummy spicy tomato soup which she makes from a Dutch recipe - don't ask me to name it. Then mid morning a bunch of flowers arrived from Sharon.

After work Ian arranged for us to go out for dinner. I chose to go to the Indian restaurant just across the road from work although we had to go home and collect Jamie first. It is never busy at that restaurant which is a shame because their food is very tasty. We were joined by Sharon and Holly and filled ourselves up on curry, rice and naan bread. Yummmmm. Ian and Jamie walked home.

So I've had a lovely two days.

Thank you GD & GT for the Cyprus books. I've not had the time to give them a really good look yet, but on first glance they look interesting. Was Shirley wanting to read this blog, or the library one? Either way she's welcome. Just give her the url for each:

http://springwoodcolquhouns.blogspot.com/
and http://readersinthemist.blogspot.com/

Thank you too, Fiona, Mark and Rory for the necklace. Lovely.

I got a digital camera from the family for my birthday. I chose it myself last weekend. I wanted a smaller one than the one we've had and I got a little pouch for it that I can put on my belt when I'm out on the fireground.

BTW: I was at book group on Friday. We are going to have a trivia night at our meeting next month to raise money for MS research. There is a thing called Throw the Book which is for book groups - they supply all the questions so it's easy to do. We're going to open up our book group to family and friends to come and play too. I'm quite excited about it.