Sunny Saturday

Saturday 27th February 2016

Busy Saturday

Mr and Mrs O

It was a busy, busy morning! Lots of regulars and a few new faces came in. I had a queue at the counter and the phone ringing at one point. Loved it - the time went in a flash.

Mr and Mrs O came in - usually they come in during the week. They have a caravan in Blackpool and spend half the week there - in the warmer months. Mrs O takes a lot of books out each time.

She told me today that she is going into hospital on Tuesday to get a new knee! She said that she hopes she'll be up and about again by the time my last day comes along - as she wants to come to my Tea Party.

Also, she confided that she's worried about the kind of books Mr O might bring her when he comes in on his own. I told her I'll save her some new ones - so she'll get something she likes. She's very into crime - so I know what to keep for her.

Hanging Basket Cases!

My Blast from the Past today are more photos from May 2013 when we had the staff from Biddulph Grange show us how to make our own hanging baskets. I still have the (empty) basket outside. I will have to try to remember what they taught us - so I can refill it for this summer.

You need lots of moss!

I had a phone call from one of the staff at Clayton. She was asking me when she could come over to go through the opening and closing routines of the library. It turns out that she is going to be covering Silverdale every other Thursday afternoon. Clayton is one of our libraries that is surviving with paid staff. That and Kidsgrove and of course - Newcastle, our HQ.

The other five - Silverdale, Knutton, Talke, Audley and Loggerheads were meant to be "community owned and community staffed" except that no groups came forward to take any of them over. As far as I know - no volunteers have materialised to run yet them either. This means the remaining three libraries in our district are going to have to somehow staff and manage these five as well. With a much reduced staff. No-one I have spoken to yet know how this is going to be accomplished. It's only four weeks to the day 80 staff leave the service in Staffordshire. I heard rumours today that at least six more have resigned this week - as most people have not got the hours or locations they wanted.

I really want Silverdale to survive!

Time to Fly Away?

Friday 26th February 2016

Had another lovely afternoon at Silverdale. The Knit and Natter ladies all arrived and I got them some chocolate chip cookies to go with their tea and coffees today.

Before they arrived I set up a new display for them with our latest knitting books. :-)

One lady wanted to share a baby's blanket pattern from a very old magazine with the rest of the group. I carefully photocopied it in colour for them. The copies looked much better than the original!

 It was really busy on the computers too. Two different people were printing out Ryan Air boarding passes (lucky them!) One woman was panicking - as hers wouldn't print no matter how many times she tried! I got her to login on a different PC and it worked from there. She was very grateful!

Messy Co-op!

Another customer asked me to help him apply for Universal Credit - as he'd been told by the Job Centre that is what he needed to do. They just said - "Do it online!" so naturally he came to the library! I got him to fill the form in on the computer - put when he tried to submit it - it just said that he wasn't eligible for it. Didn't give any reason for that - so all I could tell him was ring the Job Centre again. I don't like it when I can't solve people's problems :-(

My Blast from the Past is a photo I took in 2012 behind the library. It is also the area behind the Co-op and they had been letting it get very messy with rubbish and old loaves of bread strewn everywhere. I took this so that I could go round to complain and confront them with the evidence! They did tidy up a bit! Actually, they have a new manager now and he is much better at keeping it clean.

Dante's Inferno

Thursday 25th February 2016

It's frightening how quickly February is flying by! Apparently while I was off on Tuesday the new community librarian came and interviewed a  volunteer in Silverdale. I'm not sure who it was - someone said possibly a woman from the parish council. One member had actually asked me for a leaflet - she is 74 years old and very nice. I'm not sure how competent she is with computers though.
It is all very dispiriting. I had an email from the Chief Executive to say how wonderfully the volunteer project was going and I had to make sure that all the leaflets and posters were very prominent in my library. Also, it is my job to ask every person who comes in if they want to volunteer.
This made me very angry and upset. Am I supposed to say "Oh the council is making me redundant from this job that I love - would any of you like to take over? You'll get a bit of on the job training (although if they saw the manual that is currently being prepared by library staff at Newcastle - they'd run a mile!) but no money Please feel free to jump in my grave!"


When I think of the post- graduate diploma in Library and Information Science at Manchester - while working at Staffs Uni - and then another two years doing a Masters - it makes me want to weep.



Cool Wall Art

Still, it was a happy Thursday. The poets were a delight as always and lots of my favourite customers came in. I think word of my Last Day Tea Party is getting around - I am looking forward to a good turnout. The birdwatchers were in too during the afternoon - some lovely birdsong coming from the bottom rooms. They tell me that they will be on a field trip next week - so won't be in the library.

I had to chase a request today for a customer. Mr B has been reading his way through all the Patrick O'Brian books in our collections. He wrote the Aubrey–Maturin series, sea novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The first one was Master and Commander and there are 20 of them!  Now, he has decided to move on to Dante's Inferno. I looked through our catalogue - but any copies listed were missing or long overdue. Libraries these days don't have room for much reserve stock - only clean and popular books are given space on the shelves.



I had requested that we buy a Penguin Classics version a few weeks ago but nothing had appeared. I checked again today - and it had been ordered - but never arrived. My boss ordered it again - so I relayed this back to Mr. B via email. He seemed happy to be kept updated at least :-)

The posters we sell in the library are still very popular. I have sold quite a few recently. They are great! I bought the periodic table and a world map one for my new home office. Of course, most are purchased for kids rooms :-) One of my favourites - which I have up behind the counter in order to advertise them - is the Six Wives of Henry VIII. Good to know who they were and what happened to each one - it's the kind of random information that comes in useful in pub quizzes! :-)

My Blast from the Past today is a photo I took of my New Books shelf which accidently had a rather unfortunate juxtaposition books! Oops - Sorry Alfie :-)

Disaster Monday!

Monday 22nd February 2016

I had to turn lots of people away today - as the computers weren't working. My admin one was (in a limited capacity) but the public ones were not at all. According to the emails I got, there had been a power outage over the weekend and the Uninterruptable Power Source had also failed - so two components were completely trashed. This meant the whole website for the council was down as well as many important internal systems.

Mr S and clipboard :-)

Luckily as our Library Management System was via the internet - it was fine. I could also get onto the web - just not the intranet. So, it didn't disrupt my work too much. I was still able to help out Mr. S aka Crossword Guy. He didn't have too many for me today. He wanted to know:

1. Where Bernard Cribbens was born - Oldham
2. What is the title of the latest Rocky movie - Creed
3. Who owns Chelsea football club - Roman Abramovich (I knew that one without looking it up :-)
4. What is a breed of Zebu cattle that is used for dairy farming in Pakistan. (Two words) - turns out to be Red Sindhu

You learn something every day :-) Mr S let me take a photo of him and his clipboard too!

It was also Coffee Tots day - so as usual the place was full of pushchairs and the sound of singing and occasional crying. It was as popular as ever and the health visitors that run it were telling me that they are going to be running another session in the local school as it is so oversubscribed. Their managers are so delighted as no event they have tried before has ever got off the ground.

Landscape with sheep

Mr N came in too today  - he was delighted with his new Simon Scarrow book he took last time. He said that within the first few pages there were heads coming off and blood everywhere - he couldn't put it down. He was looking for a recent Clive Cussler on the New Book stand - but sadly there wasn't one there today. I told him he might see one next time.  "Ah, yes " he replied "As my old dad used to say - you never know your luck with your trousers down!" (I think he comes from a Naval family :-)

My Blast from the Past today is from last year when we held a free Felt Landscape Course and I got to have a go myself. It was an interesting technique - as you had to get lambs wool wet with soapy water and rub it between sheets of bubble wrap to make it into felt. It was quite messy - but fun. I was quite pleased with the sheep on mine :-)

Football tales from the past...

Saturday 20th February 2015

What a busy morning it was - it got to 12.30pm before I could get myself a cuppa! It was a horrible wet day - but there were so many people about. It was lovely to see so many regulars. Mr I. came in and I told him about the tea party I am going to have on my dreaded last day - 31st March. He said he'd come if I put brandy in the tea. It sounds like a good idea :-)

Eeyore loves to see families in

Mrs. Ball came in for her usual Scandinavian crime books but also asked to see today's local paper: The Sentinel. On Saturdays they have a pull-out section called The Way We Were - and she wanted to see if there were any pictures of old Port Vale teams. Her grandson had been asking her about football and Mrs Ball's grandfather actually played and managed Port Vale in the past. I looked him up on the internet and found some information and some very dashing photos! Love the moustache from his playing days - have a look here - Tommy Holford

 The computers were busy all morning and I was needed to help someone print out their boarding passes for Miami, to print out a Groupon voucher for free cinema tickets and upload another CV to a job application. It's good fun because people don't usually ask until they've struggled for a bit and they are so happy when I can help them easily and they go away clutching the document they needed. :-)

It was lovely to see a few entire families in too - mum, dad, toddler and baby. We have quite a few regular ones that come in now that we have the swish new housing estate up by the country park. (On top of Silverdale Mine)

The wonderful Mrs G :-)

My last customer of the day as Mrs G  (sister of Mrs B who owned Molly the collie) She always like to peruse the new historical books on display. She's a big fan of the Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom.
She likes to stay for a chat too.

Today she was lamenting the lack of reliable information about the European Union. She doesn't know who to believe - whether we should come out or stay in. She said something that made me laugh. Talking about the various politicians and particularly the Prime Minister she thought they'd had far too privileged backgrounds to know what was best for the whole country.

"They all went to Eton and places like that - where they are educated til they are stupid!"

The Girl in the Hello Kitty Pyjamas

Friday 19th February 2016

I do get some lovely customers in Silverdale - but also some strange ones too! I guess being open to the public and having a nice warm building with places to sit and things to occupy you we are bound to get a variety of people in.

Pyjama Party :-)

Today I had quite a regular lady who pops in the use the computers and also the scanner. I always help her scan her documents and lend her a memory stick so that she can email them where thy need to go. It just seems a little odd that she comes in wearing Hello Kitty pyjamas! They are very nice ones - it just makes me smile!

I also had another regular who comes in rather the worse for wear sometimes. Today he really did smell of drink - in fact I think we were all reeling from the alcohol fumes by the time he went out. He does need a lot of help when he's in - as he seems a bit reluctant to engage with computers - even though he has to use them for his job-seeking. I had to show him again how to attach his CV to an email so he could apply for a job. I told him he needed to write a message too - to let the person know who he was and what he as applying for - but he didn't want to do that. He said he just needed to be able to prove he had sent it - so it was in his Sent Items - to satisfy the Job Centre!

Even though it was the last day of half-term the Knit and Natterers were in! In fact, we had two new members join the group today. One lady had come in yesterday to ask me about it. She was stuck on the last bit of crocheting a jumper and asked if the ladies would be able to help her. I told her that they loved helping people out with their projects but I wasn't sure if they'd be in today - due to it being half-term and quite a few of them having to look after grandchildren.

Flowers galore!

However - a few of them turned up and made the two new ladies very welcome. There was loads of laughing going on when I went down the with the tea and Twix bars for them. I think the newbies will be coming back next week. In honour of the group I have fished out a photo for my Blast from the Past - it's of all the flowers that adorn my noticeboard and carry on up the library walls and towards the exit. Many done by Tracy when she was running the group. They are a great advert for them as so many people ask me about them when they are at the counter.

Half-Term Hush

Thursday 17th February 2016

It was pretty quiet today - what with no classes going on because of half-term. I missed the poets and the bird-watchers. It was strange not to have to get the rooms ready for them.

When I got in first thing - the alarm had not been set - as it had gone off during the night and was now flashing a warning. In fact while I was asleep (and had my phone on silent) I had been called twice from the alarm company to say I needed to attend. I have done this a few times - had to get dressed and go out in the middle of the night because the alarm had been triggered. The first time it happened I took Nathan with me as I was scared to go out to a possible burglary on my own! The police were there when I got there - and we searched the building and couldn't see anything wrong.

Half-term reading

After that, there were so many false alarms that the police stopped attending - which was much worse because I felt much more vulnerable going over there on my own in the wee small hours! I can't believe they expected us Library Supervisors to do that! Now they have just employed a security firm to attend any call-outs in the night . I only handed the spare keys over to them last week. I guess they can't expect volunteers to come out during the night so they've had to pay this company to do it for them.  I won't miss that part of the job - that's for sure!



Anyway - when I looked around I noticed that the big poster for the wrestling at the Working Men's Club next door - which the promoter asked if he could put up a couple of days ago - had fallen off the wall in the foyer. That was what must have set off the alarm this time! Luckily I have experience of resetting them - so I soon got it sorted. The engineer called later in the morning - but I told him I'd managed to fix it. They charge a fortune if they have to send someone round!



Summer Reading Challenge!

It wasn't too busy today - it was pretty damp and cold and I think that a few families in the village may have gone away for the half-term break. I had a few girls in - but not many kids on their own.

I am looking forward to this evening as we were meeting up with Tracy and hubby Al - in the local pub for a meal and a few drinks. We'll get the chance for a bit of a catch-up!

Today's Blast from the Past is from one of my Summer Reading Challenges - when we decorate the library and try to get the children to read six books over the summer. If they succeed they get a medal and certificate. It has been proved that if children don't read over the long six week break - then when they get back to school their reading age can actually drop. This is a way to try to get them to keep up reading level all year.

New Books Day!!!

Monday 15th February 2016

The day started off like a typical Monday - with the Crossword Guy, Mr. S and his clipboard. The clues that had him stumped this week were:

1. What is the first name of Mrs Crabapple from The Simpsons? - Edna (I didn't need to Google that!)
2. What kind of acids can't be synthesised by the body but have to be obtained through food? - Amino (I guessed that - but Googled it to make sure :-)
3. What was the name of the flying island in Gulliver's Travels? - Laputa (Looked that up)
4. Which author with the first name Howard wrote Finkler Questions - Jacobson (I knew that one :-)

What's inside?

Even more exciting - I had a delivery of new books! I love new books days! Today they were from Peters - which meant children's books. There was a new Jacqueline Wilson, two Wimpy Kid books and a deluxe edition of Where's Wally and many others.



Something for everyone!

I had to receipt them all on Axiell, our Library Management System and then stamp them with the Silverdale stamp before checking to see if any had requests on them. Only one did - the Wimpy Kid Old School one by Jeff Kinney. It is amazing how popular these comic strip books are. I firmly believe that it doesn't matter what kids read (within reason) as long as they are reading for enjoyment! There is so much variety in children's books these days - I love to read them myself :-) I have to say one of my favourites was John Green's The Fault in our Stars. Such a great story and written in a great accessible style.
 There really is something for everyone out there.




I always wanted a Library Cat

My Blast from the Past today is another favourite book of mine - Dewey!

It was all about a Library Cat in the USA. He has been found in a book return bin outside a library when he was a tiny kitten and he was looked after by the library staff and actually lived in the library all his life. He became quite a celebrity!

I always wanted a library cat of my own for Silverdale. There was a local feral moggie that used to hang around The Parade the first few years I was here. Occasionally he'd wander into the library - but \I could never persuade him to stay for long! He was quite an independent cat.  The pet shop in The Parade used to leave food outside the shop for him - and I later discovered that Mr. C used to buy him a carton of Felix on a Sunday - because the shop was shut. That's so sweet :-)

Councillors' Day

Saturday 13th February 2016

Busy councillors

It's the second Saturday of the month - which means that the local councillors hold their surgery in the library. They sit in the rooms at the bottom with the door open so people can see they are in there. If anyone has anything they want to discuss - they close the door for privacy if necessary.  Today we had Mr Eagles - a Borough Councillor and Mr Rout, a Parish Councillor. They didn't want a cuppa today - as they'd both just had one before they arrived.

One of my regular customers, Mr T came in to talk to them. He was in quite a while - I'm not sure what it was about! The councillors stay for about an hour - then they go over to the local community centre where there is a coffee morning held, to see if anyone over there needs help with anything. They are really good - shame we don't see any of the other councillors for the area.

The PCs were busy too!



Tracy's leaving present

The computers were busy too - Mr. C was picking out his horses - although he didn't hold out much hope of success today. Not many good horses running. Other customers were using the PCs for job hunting and also Ancestry.com. If you access it from a library - then you can use it for free! If you do it from home you have to pay. It is a very popular subscription service - and many of our customers use it regularly to print out marriage and birth records. There do seem to be quite a few families in the area doing their family trees. In fact Mrs S tells me that she is a distant cousin to Benedict Cumberbatch :-)


My Blast from the Past today is a photo of the leaving present that I bought for Tracy. It was a clock for her to put in her Mobile Library which says "Librarian- the original search engine." I hoped it would remind her of me and our fun times at Silverdale - I think she really liked it :-)

Half-Term Excitement

Friday 12th February 2016



Happy Spider Coaster on my desk

You can feel the excitement in the air - half-term is nearly here. Some children seemed to have finished at lunchtime today. While it means there won't be any classes in the library - there will be lots of children. Usually we'd have had a craft activity for them - but there are so few staff around now we don't get to do that anymore. I remember when Tracy and I had a Halloween craft session where we showed the children how to make spider drinks coaster and hanging skeletons. It was great fun! The coaster is still here on my desk right now :-)

One memorable kids' activity we had was when two Roman Soldiers came for the day! They were fantastic! They were in full costume and in between entertaining visiting classes from the two local schools - they just roamed around the library all day talking to everyone who came in. The customers were fascinated with the props they'd brought with them - such as the stick that Romans used to wipe their bottoms with! It was such a fun day. They gave me a tiny pair of leather Roman Sandals - which had their website embossed on them! Ancient and Modern!!

Poseable skeleton

This half-term I'll just have to make sure there are plenty of colouring sheets out and maybe fish out the old board games from the back office. Though I guess most of the kids will prefer to be on the computers playing games anyway.

Had a couple of new library customers today - I got them signed up as they wanted to print from the computers.

One was trying to send a CV off for a job application and the other guy was printing out colourful tattoo designs. That is a popular activity here at Silverdale :-)

Mr. C was in - checking up on a local news story. He'd been told by someone in the bookies that a man had gone into Boots in Newcastle and slit his own throat. We checked the local news sites and it turns out that the poor chap had died. How horrific for the staff and shoppers too. It must have been horrendous.

The tiny leather Roman Sandals

There were some last-minute customers as I was closing down the systems - a man with three lively children. He'd checked the catalogue on his phone and saw that we had a book he wanted so he'd rushed in to get it. It was the autobiography of Shane Ward - which I found and he went off happy :-)

View from Outside

Thursday 11th February 2016

Phew - it was busy today! I was going to go outside while the sun was shining to take a picture of the exterior of the library to put on this blog. It was home time before I got the chance! So here is what it looks like as I lock up at night. I will get a good sunny shot when I can :-) It is a pretty library really!

As you know by now, Thursday is Poets day - one of my favourite groups that use the library. Caroline was early again - but luckily I'd got the room ready and her hearing loop and box of literature in the room ready for them to use. The sun was streaming through the windows and it was quite hot in their rooms. In fact, Caroline reported after the class that everyone was quite slow today. Maybe the heat or the fact that they are ready for their half-term break. They won't be here next week.

TV crew in Silverdale

I had an extra early lunch today as Cheryl had to come to cover my break from Newcastle. As there were two staff off sick from there - she had to get back by 1pm. So, I had my lunch around 11.45am to give her time to get back there and get some lunch herself. It seems that there were some interviews going on for the supervisor post at Cheadle that didn't get filled by existing staff. Strange as the closing date for applications isn't until 21st Feb - so I don't know why they are interviewing already. Who knows!?

My Blast from the Past today is when I had TV and radio crews in Silverdale the day that Children's Laureate Julia McDonald came to entertain the local primary school children. It was such a fun day. They performed Room on the Broom for her and she tried out some of her new material on them. We were even on Midlands Today - where Julia was passionately defending libraries and the importance of them to children's education and development. She was just great!

One, two, three...six thousand

Monday 8th February 2016

Today is the day we have to start our stock count. I had been a little anxious about how I was going to manage to do it - especially on a busy Monday when I'd be interrupted all the time. I need not have feared though - as my wonderful boss Terry arrived first thing this morning to help me out! He stayed the whole morning - so we made a start on the counting. I did the fiction and large print and he did the children's and non-fiction. By 11.30 we had done the whole lot! I can't remember the exact figure - but there are over 6000 books in my library.

Better Wi-Fi - sorted!

I even had time to do my banking and take the loot into Santander's in town - before he had to go on to Knutton library at 1pm.

Terry was surprised how many mums and babies came for Coffee Tots. In fact the Health Visitors are worried that the numbers may exceed what is safe to have in our meeting rooms. The official limit is 20 in the big room and 16 in the smaller room. They have the whole space with the partition open. So, do you count babies as one person - or maybe half? We have to decide how we work it out!

I've also had my Wi-Fi updated. There was a problem that no-one in the rooms at the bottom of the library could connect to the Wi-Fi point behind the counter - so it has been beefed up and placed at the end of the room. The chap got up his ladders and didn't take long. It's been flashing blue ever since!

The computers have been very busy too. Mrs D - an American who now lives in Silverdale, was trying to research car insurance. She told me that she'd spent 40 minutes this morning on the phone to just one company. It was so much easier on the internet. Lots of people come in to print out their car insurance documents - as they never seem to send them to you anymore.

Naked Miner - who is he?

My Blast from the Past today is a picture that has been hanging by the counter ever since I have been at Silverdale. The Mysterious Naked Miner!
There are many photos from Silverdale Pit (no longer open - it is now a new housing estate and a country park) which are on loan from the Borough Museum in Newcastle. Most local people are fascinated by them as there is usually someone they know on them. My dad was at Silverdale for 12 months before he retired.

However, no-one has ever claimed to know who the naked miner is! I wonder if I will find out before I leave?

National Libraries Day

Saturday 6th February 2016

Design your own bookmark

It has been a busy, busy morning!

Firstly, it is National Libraries Day - so we'd usually have some kind of event to get young ones excited and involved. Sadly, with single staffing I had to do something that didn't take any staff input. I was sent some bookmarks to cut out - so that I could let kids have a go at colouring them in on their own. I wasn't sure how that would go - but the ones that came in today were actually pretty enthusiastic!

It's a good job too - as I was really busy at the counter - I had a few queues today.

Madison came in with her dad and had a go at the snake bookmark - and she made a fantastic job - it was ever so realistic. Then she told me that as well as two dogs and two cats - she also has a snake at home. When I asked her how big it was she stretched out her hands really wide!! That's why her bookmark looked so good :-)

I asked her dad if it was okay to take a photo for the blog and he said it was fine - so you can see for yourself!



Madison and her snake

It's a shame her twin brothers didn't come in today - I'm sure they would have enjoyed it too. As a special treat - when she asked if she could stamp out her own books - I let her have a go.

Thomas came in with his mum and wanted to take his bookmark to decorate at home. A few others had a go too. The boys from last week came back in again  playing their circle game on the computers.. One had lost his card - and blamed his baby brother for chewing it.

There was also a chap on the computers for the last hour and it looked like he was catching up with a bit of War and Peace on the BBC iPlayer,

Mrs S was also in today. She is registered blind and loves our talking books. She always asks me to choose her some new ones. She likes a bit of crime - BUT - it has to have a detective in it. It's her first question when I say "his one looks like a good one" :-) "Yes - but has it got a detective in it?" She certainly lets me know the next week if it turns out there wasn't!

My Blast from the Past is still on a crafty theme - it was when the gardeners from Biddulph Grange came to Silverdale to show interested customers how to make themselves a hanging basket -  last summer.

They brought a van full of plants and moss and wire baskets - and all for free! It was great - and I was allowed to take part too! We all took our baskets home and they flowered all summer :-)

Making amazing hanging baskets

Book Sale

Friday 5th February 2016

It's Friday - which means a 1pm start today. First job - sort out the room for the Knit and Natter ladies and get the tea on! They start to arrive the minute I unlock the door and when I take their tea and biscuits down to them, they are already sorting out a tricky stitch problem for one of them. She said "If you hear screaming - then it's because I just can't get it!" I left them to it!

Did you want any Katie Flynn?

Another regular came in - he never borrows books but just comes in to peruse the Book Sale trolley. I have quite a few on there at the moment as there has been a lot of weeding going on recently. Next week we have to do a complete stock count - so Farida from Newcastle has been helping to get rid of old and grubby stock - or things that are just not going out.

Today he found so much on there that he had to ring his wife to ask what she had read out of the ones he'd found. "What would we do without mobile phones?" he said sheepishly when he'd finished his call.

It was a pleasant afternoon. Had to help one guy on the computer to upload a scan of his driving licence as he was completing an online CRB type check. We use our multi-tasking networked photocopier for this - and I have a spare memory stick for anyone who needs to upload CVs and the like to online forms and applications. I just make sure they delete everything and give it me back at the end. I have been told that I have saved people's skins many times :-)

There was student in printing out applications for university and another regular who had forgotten her headphones so borrowed a spare set from the counter.



Love this tattoo design

We do have a lot of different things printed out and photocopied.

My Blast from the Past today is a photo of a design that someone printed out for their new tattoo - then left a copy of it in the machine. I really like it - love Rosie the Riveter - so I pinned it to my noticeboard behind the counter.

This must have been over two years ago as Tracy was with me. Anyway, a few weeks ago a young chap came in and saw it on the wall behind me - then proceeded to lift up his shirt to show me that he had the exact same tattoo!! Very nice it was too :-)

Historical bloodlust...

Thursday 4th February 2016

My first task of the day is to get the room ready for the poets. I've brought them some Kit Kats today for their tea break. Caroline is extra early this morning, as there were no accidents, road works or random people parked across her driveway today. Nice to have chance for a longer chat before her poets start to arrive. We are resolving to meet up after I have left Silverdale, and are trying to find interesting arts events to go to in the area. We once went to see a couple of plays about the Staffordshire Horde at the New Victoria Theatre, which were brilliant.

Mr. C was in to pick his horses. He informs me that he has booked his flights to go to Greece once more, in May, to visit his son. He's definitely getting adventurous :-)



Mr N loves a gory story

Another very frequent customer is in today and I manage to get him to pose for a photo. Mr N. is quite a voracious reader and it is a challenge keeping him supplied with the kind of books he likes.

He is into historical adventure and crime. He likes them with plenty of blood and gore in them and isn't happy unless there is a disembowelment within the first few pages. He has gone through so many authors and series. I am constantly on the look out for new ones that he would like. He usually has about half the reserve trolley filled with books I've ordered for him. I wonder exactly how much he has spent on reservations since I've been here? Nine years of them!?

He was excited today because he could see that I had the latest Simon Scarrow book waiting for him. He is only allowed to read one book a week at the moment as he has eye strain from too much reading! So, he's taking it steady until they get better.

He is so nice, he brings me chocolates quite often. He always asks "How are you for chocolates?" I have to leave one in the box so that I can say I still have some left! Otherwise he'd be bringing them in all the time!

Mr. N's waiting requests

I get to have another chat with Caroline before she goes back to Cheshire. She reported that they had a good session today and almost all of them had done the homework she had set them last week. They were asked to either write a poem about something obsolete or they had to open a dictionary, stab a word without looking then incorporate that word into a poem. Sounds like they had fun with it. I can always hear laughter as they read out their work to each other down in the room.

She showed me a very clever poem one had written about Daleks - inspired by a card he had received:


He'd drawn his own version showing a dalek using a Stannah stairlift!!

Tracy and Berni

I had a delightful afternoon in the company of Cheryl from Newcastle. She stayed all afternoon - not just over lunch - so I had the chance to catch up with a few backroom jobs. Also, between us, we managed to take a reading from the People Counter - with stats for a whole year. It involved USB ports, software and a very long wire!! Cheryl had to make sure no-one tripped over it while I fiddled about with the computer trying to get the info they needed in Stafford. I think it was successful! Well, we had a very big excel file anyway :-)

My Blast from the Past today is from when Tracy and I started working together at Silverdale, all those years ago. She came from Wolstanton Library after that was closed down and I was new, after working in the prison library service for a while. We both started around the same time - which was lovely as we learned it all and got to know our new customers together. I always looked forward to coming to work - Tracy was a fab and fun colleague :-)




Only two months left...

Monday 1st February

Can't believe it is February already, That means only two months more at my precious Silverdale. It was only a half day today too - as I had my consultant appointment at the hospital this afternoon. It's four years since I had my cancer treatment - and I am down to check-ups every six months now. This should be my final year - as you get discharged after Year 5.

The morning was a typical Monday one - Mr. S aka Crossword Guy was in with his clipboard. Today he was stuck on a town in the Auvergne area of France - turned out to be Vichy. The new PEEPS parenting class was back in - with some rather fractious babies today! The organiser came out of the room at the end and apologised for the noise. It was fine - quite tame compared to Coffee Tots! She said she was off home for a lie down!

Mr. C was in too - had a chat while he waited for the bus to Newcastle to appear. We were chatting about the Real Marigold Hotel programme on BBC2 - where some celebrity pensioners go to see of they can live in India. He was amused by Miriam Margolis's left-wing tendencies.



My photo today is of Mr and Mrs G, who always come in together. Mr. G is into crime and Mrs G. loves a good family saga. Neither of them have been well recently - but they are always concerned about my health and future.

They were happy to pose for a photo for me - Mr. G even took off his hat :-)  I'm going to miss them so much!




Voodoo Librarian

Today's Blast from the Past is rather a spooky one... this is a present I received from one of the ladies in the Lace-Making Class - which has been happening for years on Tuesday afternoons. It was made by the lady's sister and won a competition for crafts (or something)

It is meant to be a Librarian - but it scares the heck out of me. In fact, since it has been in the library things started going downhill with the funding etc.. but I was always too superstitious to throw it away. It might find it's own way back...