Floating down to Camelot

- Somebody really needs to design a book that doesn't fall over. I've spent the day removing armfuls of books, inserting RFID tags, then putting them back again. Every time you take an armful off the shelves, there's a CRASH CRASH CRASH of the remaining books falling over, and something a THUD THUD THUD of them all falling on the floor. Something Must Be Done. Since our shelves are metal, I've often wondered if this Something should be little magnets at the bottom of the book, but this would make it hard to squoosh the entire shelf of books up after someone takes a few out. More thought is required.

- Seen in a book I was tagging (but paraphrased here): "I want to start by exploding an oft-quoted myth: that some children are just non-sporty. There is no such thing as a non-sporty child!" Really?

- Why are most recipe books enormous glossy things with tight binding that won't stay open?

- Are there regional variations in the way drivers thank other drivers who've given way to them?

It should be illegal to build office space in the second floor of a warehouse with a flat metal roof, with barely-opening windows only on one side. Ascending the stairs is like rising into a fiery, airless hell. Even two desktop fans is not enough to make it bearable. Thank goodness for pear cider and ice cubes. [EDIT: Said cider not consumed at work, but after getting home.)

(Also, thank goodness that, unlike Pellinor, I don't have to spend the weekend running around in full armour, and sleeping in a greenhouse-like tent. I'd rather have torrential rain in a tent than full sunlight from dawn.)

Putting together publicity material for a fantasy-themed summer reading challenge produces some interesting quotes. I feel the urge to try to write a fantasy story in which all these quotes appear:

"Can you blow up the wizard?"
"Have I shrunk the fairy too much?"
"The wizard looks wrong in landscape."
"The dragons fall over if you as much as breathe in their direction."
"I'll flip another dragon for you."
"Where's the other wizard? Oh, here he is. He fell in the bin."

This year's summer reading challenge is called Quest Seekers. Am I the only one who thinks that this is a stupid name? To me, it has shades of Pendle Hill (aka Hillhill Hill) in that "to quest" and "to seek" mean the same thing. It's supposed to convey excitement and adventure and daring, but to me it conveys a sense of aimlessness, in which the ultimate goal isn't snatching treasure from fiery dragons, but is just to find something you can start to search for. It's less finding the Holy Grail, and more wandering plaintively around the house trying to find your shopping list.

I will grant you, though, that "I'm seeking a quest" does make sense in the world of role-playing games, especially those computer-based ones, when you charge around a town, bumping into walls, tripping over prostitutes and getting trapped behind large cows, as you exchange inanities with various examples of local colour in the desperate hope that one of them will turn out to have a terrible infestation of three rather small beetles in his cellar, which, for some reason, require a group of heavily armed war machines and a mage of unfathomable power to remove.

(Or "random nits," as I initially wrote.)

- Today is Bookstart Day, celebrating books for babies and toddlers. This year's theme is pirates. I spent the morning at a Mums and Toddlers group where all the 1 and 2 year olds were dressed as pirates. I do wonder why pirates - people who did some distinctly X-rated things - have become something principally for pre-school children. According to pre-school books on pirates, pirates are rather like ever so slightly mischievous toddlers, who have fun with parrots, have parties on deck, find treasure during sand and water play, and occasionally almost fight with their arch-enemies, before deciding to be friends and eating jelly and ice cream. How odd.

- Sainsbury's is confusing me. They've taken to asking me how many bags I've brought with me. Since I tend to grab my Bag of Bags, finding out how many I have tends to involve much rummaging and flustering, and usually comes out as about 9, even if I only use 3 of them, due to packing ever bag to bulging. I wonder why they need to know. Surely the only thing that matters is whether I've brought "enough" or "insufficient." They've also taken to calling all their staff "colleagues", even in notices addressed to customers. This seems odd to me. Surely you can't just be a colleague; you have to be a colleague of someone.

- I seem to have been talking about everything under the sun, lately, except for diary type things, so in the interests of rectifying this: Life was very cold, but the heating's been fixed this morning, so that's good. I have a very mild cold - so mild that I barely notice it, except when I wake up at 5 and can't get to sleep again, feeling feverish and sore throaty. Pellinor's away all weekend, sleeping on a straw mattress under a fake tiger skin, being attacked by goblins all night, and then I'm away on Sunday to go to Dundee - back on Tuesday night - in a complicated journey that took me all of yesterday evening to work out, and which involves almost every possible mode of transport except yak.

The cats are having their first incarceration in a cattery this weekend. We're dancing at a festival, and a chap's coming in to tile our kitchen and hall while we're away, and apparently even the feather-light touch of a cat's paw will utterly ruin a newly-laid tile. (Okay, admittedly I call my cats "thunderpaws" and laugh hollowly at the "cat-like tread" song, but, still, we're not talking elephants here.) I'm quite anxious and stressed about it, because there's no way to tell them that I'm not actually abandoning them like the last owner did, and I will be back.

(Also stressed by work – the lead up the summer holidays is always awful – though I don't know exactly what it is that's been giving me nasty dreams that make me feel out of sorts all morning. Three nights ago, a vampire was chasing me through an empty school and cornered me just as I woke up. Two nights, a bomber was circling overhead, having just destroyed Havant and probably started World War 3. Last night, everyone vanished – everyone)

But, anyway, getting away tonight is complicated, since I'd intended to leave work early (I worked until after 8 on Wednesday, at a parents' evening in school), but now probably can't do so… but maybe can, and I won't know the answer until it happens. We want to get a ferry off the island early enough to have our tent built before dark, but we also need to get the cats packaged up and sent off, and the cattery (understandably, since they have lives to lead) isn't that flexible about arrival time. "I think we only have a very narrow window to the get the cats into the cattery," I said, which prompts some very lovely images. :-)

Eek! We've just been phoned up and told not to leave our premises because of a bomb!

EDIT: Midday: It's a 40 foot long pipe bomb, whatever that is. It's located about 500 yards away. *nervous*

EDIT 2: And I've got no lunch today! I was depending on the food van, but that won't be coming since all the roads are blocked.

EDIT 3 (12.15): It's a World War 2 bomb, apparently. I'm sure we're in no danger, or they'd have evacuated us - though quite where we could go, I don't know, since the only road out of the estate takes us a whole lot closer to the bomb. We'd have to go down to the river, I suppose, then get evacuated by boat. Starvation is the main danger facing us. The few who were organised enough to bring a packed lunch are looking very smug. We foodless masses might need to launch raiding parties and start some looting.

( This post started small, but just growed and growed )

EDIT 10 (17.35): Am home! Am free! Have food in me! The cordon is still in place, so the drama is still ongoing, but they let us out.

And in all the excitement I quite forgot that, just before the drama started, I was chuckling over a book called "Basic ear training," and about an email recounting boss's boss's boss's meeting with "representatives of Mankind," and had meant to do a quick post about it at lunch time. Also about fire-fighters.

Well, Harry Potter has given me a lovely bruise on the inside of my arm. Quite violent, he was. And intransigent. He was in the form of a large display unit thingy that really didn't want to get into my car and then refused point blank to let itself be erected. It's all pointless, anyway. What's the point of having a dump bin that can hold multiple copies of a book that was snatched out of my hands the moment I entered the library, and we now have no copies of? "You're too late! Ha-ha!" it should read. We just don't have the money to justify buying 50 copies per library, since they'd all be sitting unloved on the shelves after a few weeks. It would be fun if we could. Everyone was talking yesterday about how Morrisons over the road was selling it for 4.99. We could stand in its carpark with placards saying, "Why pay 4.99? You can get it for free over the road" and steal all their customers. Actually, though, I'd rather do a display full of lovely books by Diana Wynne Jones and the like, labelled "Finished HP? A gaping hole in your life? Read these instead!"

No evil sorcerers descended to strike me down, so I guess my security arrangements passed muster.

I personally enrolled some 70 or 80 children in the Big Wild Read yesterday, each child requiring several minutes of happy, enthusiastic explanation. I was shattered by the end of the day. This led to wine. This led to a late night. This means that I think I am going to go back to bed now.

As for the book, I'm not a huge fan of the series, but I still like to read each book as soon as it comes out, so I can join in conversations. I like the books enough to read them eagerly, but not to reread them. No comments here, since this is a spoiler-free post, so all I will say is that I have now finished.

I'm working today. Things normally go very wrong on my Saturdays - floods (twice), power cuts, mass illness etc. Today all is calm, except for all the phone calls resulting from our ongoing Case of the Accidental Overdue Reminders. (It was the dodgy satellite dish wot dunnit.) I don't like being at HQ by myself, though. It's a noisy building, with lots of strange squeaks and groans that I never notice during the week, but which seem very loud when I'm all alone, the only human alive on the whole rather isolated industrial estate.

So I've been doing hard physical work to keep myself busy. A few weeks ago, the tall bookcase behind my desk collapsed under the weight of shelving catalogues, storytelling books, bulging box-files, and the National Curriculum. Actually, it half collapsed, and a colleague had just wandered over to investigate, when the rest of it collapsed, narrowly missing burying him. (I was out at the time.) "I could have been killed!" he squawked periodically for the rest of the week.

Today I finally got round to emptying junk out of another bookcase on the far side of the room, belonging to someone who has now left, and then dragged it laboriously across to behind my desk, where I filled it up and had good sort-out while doing so. It did strike me at times that I was probably being rather silly, struggling with a bookcase that was at least two feet taller than I am, when there is no living soul near me, except for red squirrels who don't tend to be that good in an emergency, but I managed it without accident. I now ache, but have a lovely tidy desk, windowsill, and floor space around my desk. And I bet Pellinor isn't even up yet, while I've done all this. [/smug]

We have an "unbirthday party" to go to tonight, and then I have a whole weekend to look forward to, since I'm off on Monday to make up for today. If I remember, I'll grab Casino Royale when I leave today, and pop it back tomorrow, so it can go out to its new home on Monday as planned. I never quite got round to seeing it at the cinema, although I wanted to.

I sat an exam today. Actually, "exam" is an insult to decent, hard-working exams everywhere, since it was one of those ones when you're allowed all your notes with you, so it's just a glorified comprehension exercise. I wasn't remotely nervous. In fact, I was more insulted than anything else. Can't they actually treat me as an adult and trust that I've learned something on this two-day course, rather than having to test me on my ability to read and regurgitate the handouts?

( Musings on learning styles, handwriting and computers )

I went to a course today on supporting adult learning - the first of three days spread over the next few weeks. Because of the timings of the ferries and trains, I had to leave home at 6.45 to get to a course that started at 9.30 in a place only about 15 miles away, as the crow flies. The half hour walk from the station at the other end didn't help with the timing, though.

( Ice-breaker, and role-playing excess )

Why is it so totally impossible to get the local press to tell you if they plan to come to an event, or not? You send out the press release, they receive it... and then you wait. You start the event. All the time, you have one eye on the door, in a mix of nervousness, resignation, and hope. Will they come? Do you dare tell the people at the event that the press might be coming? The minutes tick by. The event finishes. People go home. Okay, then. Another one they've decided not to bother coming to. ( Press-related grumbles )

To add insult to injury, on the way back from today's failed appearance by the press, I stopped off to buy lunch. I told them not to bother with a bag, and walked out with some lunch items balanced on the local paper. As I reached my car, a gust of wind took the paper, and hurled all my lunch into the air. It landed in one large puddle, and my car keys landed in another. I had to wade into the puddles to get them out, getting my feet and the hem of my (long) skirt drenched in the process. By then I was so confused and flustered that I tried to get into the wrong car.

Stupid newspaper. *grumbles*

So here is a question for the absolutely and completely unrepresentative group of people who read my journal: Should fiction in libraries and bookshops be arranged entirely A-Z by author, or divided into genre categories?

( Arguments on both sides. Well, actually, arguments mostly on one side )

Our power at work has not been happy ever since Saturday. It magically fixed itself on Monday morning, but then went off again for an hour yesterday. (And, just after it came back, a server failed at County Hall, so all Internet access and email was down for the rest of the day.) It's just gone off again, so I've come home, to work (and have lunch) at home for a bit, before going out to do a storytime locally.

It was supposed be my last storytime of the summer. Tonight I was going to have my traditional "woo-hoo! I've finished!" glass of cherry wine, and relax. Tomorrow I was going to do a few things that need to be done before I go away on leave next week, and have the afternoon off.

The best laid plans... The library I was supposed to be storytelling in this morning had mis-read the date, and had plastered the town with posters advertising storytime tomorrow. So now I have to go back there tomorrow to tell stories, do my work in the afternoon, and not have half a day's leave after all. Much grring, much grring.

Then, on Saturday, we're off Up North to visit Pellinor's spectacularly large family (now bigger by a pair of twins since our last visit.) We also plan to meet up with various denizens of LJ - namely kargicq, chainmailmaiden and associated other halves and offspring. As far as I'm aware, the plan consists of going to Tynemouth Priory on Sunday to watch the jousting, and hoping to bump into each other in the crowd, after which we will make plans for some other excursion somewhere else on some other day. I have worrying visions of us still wandering round Tynemouth Priory in a week's time, plaintively trying to meet up, but I expect it will all work out.

I don't care what else I do, but I am definitely going to Barter Books in Alnwick. This time, though, we will be firm with ourselves and only stay for 4 hours, rather than 8.

My first round of storytimes is over. I now have two days to prepare the next event, before starting my next grand island tour on Thursday. I'm working on Saturday this week, so I'm destined for a six day week, unless I can prepare my storytime in record time today, and then have tomorrow off.

The storytimes are aimed at children aged around 4 to 9. I start with some stories on the relevant theme. This can be a bit stressful sometimes. I blithly decide I'll do a storytime called "Rumble in the jungle," for example, and put up all the posters. Then, two days before the storytime, I start looking for stories, and find that all the jungle stories are boring. I then have to be creative, which can lead to arguments with children. "That's not about jungles," they complain, as I pick up my next book. "It's set at the North Pole." "I know," I tell them firmly, "but a monkey appears very briefly on page 95, on holiday from the rainforest, so it still counts." Most, though, get stunned into silence. Maybe they just assume that as I'm a grown-up, I know best. Or maybe, like me, they realise that it's better having an excellent story that doesn't suit the theme, rather than a "boring" one that does.

We then have a game. The game has to be one I can play with 70 children in a large library, or with 2 children in a tiny one. It can't single out individuals, because some of them cry. This is where the conning comes in. I just endlessly recycle the same 3 games - and no-one has ever noticed. They just see the accessories, and don't see the mechanics underneath. Last time, they played a game in which they had to build a silly alien from parts. This time, they're playing a game in which they have to blow up each other's pirate ships. They don't notice that both games are actually just a beetle drive.

And then a craft, which is also challenging, since I need to come up with something that can be done by 70 or 2. It needs to accommodate different ages, and have no more than about 30 seconds of adult intervention required. It really is quite limiting. As with the game, I tend to recycle variants of the same craft, and no-one notices.

Then I need something to give to those children who scribble wildly with a crayon for 2 minutes, then announce "I'm finished. What shall I do now?" half an hour before the end of the storytime. And then it's over. Children go home. I tidy up, breathe a huge sigh of relief... and go on to the next library to do it all over again.

I have come to the conclusion that I work in a strange alternative reality.

What I definitely work in is an oven. Library HQ is a square, metal box of a warehouse, divided into two storeys. Downstairs is rather too hot, but upstairs, where my desk is, is unbearable. Walking up those stairs is like descending (upwards) into Hell, each step taking you somewhere that's hotter and more airless than the last. There is no loft space, so the flat, metal roof is just above us. The only windows are south-facing, and we can't open them much. It's just awful.

However, the reason I think it's in a different reality is that the temperature inside doesn't match the temperature outside. Last week, when we had the hottest day yet in this heatwave, the temperature inside was less unbearable than normal. Today, though... Today was by far the worst yet - everyone said so. However, when I left work, I stepped outside into a pleasant cooling breeze, and a day that feels far less oppressively hot than it's felt for quite a while.

Odd.

(This icon is meant as a plea.)

Well, it's not every day that you get to write "meeting at the police station to plan a murder" in your diary...

Despite working myself into the ground all week moving books, I had to spend today at a conference on safeguarding children. Under such conditions, one has to find one's humour wherever one can:

- According to the programme, my afternoon workshop was on "Common Valves."

- The morning speaker kept saying things like, "we need more teeth" and going on about tigers.

- There was a two-foot high door in the bottom of the stage. I spent a while imagining the civilisation of 18 inch people who lived under the stage - or maybe there's where the tigers live? Anyway, I then noticed that it said "this door must be kept locked AT ALL TIMES", which means that the people, or maybe tigers, can never get out, anyway. Poor things.

- The hand-drier in the toilets said it was a "World Dryer." I was scared to turn it on in case I caused drought in Africa.

I think my brain was a little mixed up yesterday evening, and not sure if it was in Eurovision mode, or Doctor Who mode.

When lots of cyberman came marching down the street, keeping perfectly in line, backs straight, faces impassive, legs rising up high as they walked, I just thought, "It's Riverdance!" And then I half expected the Doctor (or perhaps Buffy) to come rushing into Eurovision to take on the monsters who were representing Finland (having presumably killed and eaten the scantily-clad blondes who were supposed to sing the Finnish entry.)

Still, the cyberman did keep wonderfully in line. It's a shame our Morris dancers can never do that. Maybe a little upgrade is in order...

A day of tidying today, since Wightfrag is imminent, and the house is drowning in cat fur and Amazon packaging. I had to work yesterday, but most of that consisted of struggling along a beach in gale force winds, lashed by sand and rain, struggling to tell stories about dinosaurs to a valiant group of children who were walking from the dinosaur museum to the library as part of the island's Walking Festival.

I've spent all day in a library, experimentally categorising all the children's fiction. Since children always come in and ask for "an animal story," "a scary story" etc., I have been wondering if A-Z by author is the best way to arrange fiction. So now it is all done by category. We'll have to wait and see how people react, and if issues go up. If it doesn't work, I'll change it back.

Anyway, I'd just finished transferring around 200 books to the shelf mark "Scary Stories", when I realised that I'd actually typed "Scary Tories." This amused me sufficiently to outweigh the Grr-ness of having to change them all yet again. I don't know enough about current Tory MPs, sadly, but I wish I did, because I want to be able to categorise them as "Scary Tories", "Fairy Tories", "Funny Tories", "Animal Tories" or "Mystery Tories."