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 :-)