... The Fabulous Free 50th Feast

This Thursday past was Sandringham Library's 50th birthday and it had it's birthday party in the evening.

At first I thought there may have been some sort of conspiracy to keep me away from the food as I was in meetings at Brighton all morning and then there was a mix-up that had me hanging around waiting to make Beeby into "my young apprentice" - in the work sense since he's already well down the freeloading road all on his own.


Eventually I made it to Sandy but all the anxiety about missing out on the free feed led me to almost overdo the pre-feast eating - the nibbling and scrounging from the preparation table covered with the magnificent cake-work of Days of our Libraries and Country Girl, not to mention the many horses doovers and the dippyness of Mr Prada.
So heres another caution: pace yourself on a feast day as there's nothing worse than a wasted free dinner.

Luckily my years of training and robust constitution led to a quick recovery from that horrific "I ate too quickly and there's still so much more to eat" feeling and I was able to consume with the best of them by the time the main event rolled around - it will take the knuckle bruising from repeated "you can't eat that yet" rapping a bit longer to heal though.

The opening speech was given by Supervisor Grand Chief K with no sign of Torchwood. I can only hope that this means that SGCK has had the Torchwood problem taken care of permanently.

Other highlights include:

• a lot of mingling with the ghosts of Sandringham librarianship past
• Kiwichick, Days and The Pragmatist sporting wonderful 50's fashion
• the return of Chanlib and Vikki;
• a dozen library staff behind the desk when borrowers came up to be served;
  

My suspicion about a food deprivation conspirary deepened at the end of the night when the leftovers were quickly hustled out the door to go to the other branches rather than stay at the one I'd be at the next day.

... The Week that Was Suddenly Over

Monday - The Apprentice
My first day of being saddled with a work experience student who inexplicably was interested in Library IT. I took to heart the task of cautioning him about the detrimental effect if being immersed in LibraryLand. He was also initiated into the wonders of "Hey Phill!" problem solving for most of the day.

Tuesday - Corporate Drive By
The Apprentice started the day by asking me if I was going to start working soon, so I decided to punish him by taking him into the Council Corporate Centre IT department.
It didn't phase him.
So I took him to several of our branches in an attempt to overwhelm him with librarians and locations. He was made of sterner stuff than that and shrugged most of it off with a hmmph. So far he looked like prime IT material.

Wednesday - Road Trips, Meetings and Paperwork
The Apprentice and I traveled up and down the Seaside Road today to fix problems that were already fixed by the time we arrived at the branch. So far he was getting an excellent introduction to the life of an IT Man in LibraryLand. The next test was the IT Team meeting. The afternoon's meeting was attended by all team members and The Apprentice fitted (fat?) right in by nodding off in tandem with The Pragmatist.
After The Apprentice had gone home I stayed back at work diligently catching up on the paperwork that I was just not cruel enough to force an innocent minion to complete.
Whilst I was catching up on said paperwork, The Flibberty Gibbet, enabled by Supervisor Grand Chief K of course, made another stalking phone call. This time I was able to legitimately say I was working on RFID - it was a strange feeling, kind of itchy.

Thursday - Chocolates, Soccer and Snoozes
I was able to offload The Apprentice onto Sister Serials as a box unpacker while I attended the Service Coordinators meeting. We then spent the afternoon working out how to embiggen the print size of our slip printers and installing it on Bomber Babe's PC as a test.
The surprise of the afternoon was the box of chocolates The Apprentice gave me as a thank you for dragging him all over my little corner of LibraryLand. I shared them of course - it would have looked greedy if I'd eaten more than 80% of the box.
I rushed off to soccer delighted at being able to play in 32 degree heat for the second week running. The upside was that I scored the "last goal wins" goal by dribbling a kick over the line while we all watched on exhausted. The goal arrived right on target keeping me at a my goal every three months average. The post game recovery took a full hour but finally I was able to drag myself off home and then to ArchEnemy's for falling asleep on the couch during gaming.

Friday - SPUN and Branch Drinks
The morning was our free xmas lunch at Civica HQ preceded by the quarterly SPUN Meeting. I brought Mr Prada along as a minion to show my new stature as Mr Secretary but completely forgot to have him Fight Flibberty's minion in the pit, oh well there's always next time. I had a quick catch up over a glass of free wine with Madame President to cover where the exec was at and then headed out into the city.
After a quick drop by visit to Rugrat Twin's retail workplace I trained my way back to Sandringham.
After booting up my laptop I shut it down and we all headed off to the branch xmas drinks and dinner. It was a good evening with a cameo by Chanlib, and the evening seen out in increasingly slurred conversation with Mr Prada and Scully.

Saturday - A BBQ and Librarians Running Amok
A last minute BBQ with Fridgepower, Judgemingus, their spawn and several others left me rushing a little to make it to Miss Amanda's delightful residence for the Library Xmas Party soirée.
It was a very well attended event, with magnificent food and much joviality. I was able to meet the infamous infamous Mr Amanda, and noted the family resemblance when Little Miss Amanda called me the best customer for food trays.
The evening took a turn for the surreal later on when the Sing Star computer game was fired up. I tell you nothing compares to a 15 librarian chorus of Unchained melody - it almost killed Torchwood with hysterics (watching said fit may have been the best ten minutes of the evening).

Sunday - Legion Gathers
And finally I get to today. The clan was having a get together to celebrate several birthdays and my impending departure for Svetlanaland. No wait they weren't celebrating my leaving they were saying farewell. Handy Dad, Freeloading Mum, Legion2-4 and various partners were all there and we had a nice lunch before heading home for some much needed rest.


Hey I just found out that you can only have 200 characters of Labels on a blog post. Though the error message is confusing as it just says that you have more than 200 characters but not that it's only the labels that it cares about. I was thinking that I needed an Everything label for this post and now I had to trim out some of the less important tags.

... Pan's Labyrinth

I watched Pan's Labyrinth this morning. It was an enjoyable and beautiful movie with a nice touch of "did it really happen?" mixed with a Brazil-like ending.

Other things going on have been a farewell dinner for ChantellattheLibrary who will be missed as a brightener of the Sandringham workroom. The good part is that I no longer have to clear shelf space for the storytime collection and can continue to horde my obsolete IT equipment - just in case.

After the dinner ArchEnemy brought Legion2 over for some gaming long into the night.

To further deny me a proper nights sleep, Sir Clive Pitbull invited me out last night for a catch up drink in the city. Hector TN was there and we listened raptly to the latest in the ongoing saga of Sir Clive's crazy ex.

... the Week of Free Lunches

What a long and busy week it's been.

I've spent most of it Training up on the new Library Management Software at our suppliers HQ in the city. Four days of catered lunches and far too many lollies from the bowls on each table! Supervisor S was with me all week and we had guest appearances from Mr Prada, Sonja Roster Queen, Miss Amanda, Genealogy Jane, chanlib, Vikki, Sister Serials, Ms Magpie, Devil's Advocate and a few others.

At the same time I was dealing with settlement on the current house and pre-settlement non-disclosure of upcoming costs on the new flat. It's going to be such a holiday when the property stuff is over and I can relax with the major system upgrade at work.

Thursday night's soccer was a wonderful flashback to my childhood career as the heavens opened up and we were lashed with rain for about half of the game.

The final day of training was topped of with a night of farewell drinks for Jemima from the IT Helpdesk. CC was there as was The Polster and another Canadian CC acquaintance with a J name, coincidentally drinking CC (Canadian Club). Many xx and cokes were consumed but I made it home fine and the ice in the drinks kept my hydration levels at a safe level.

In four days of Train Travel I managed to be affected by a Connex Train delay every day - the worst was 35 minutes sitting at one station on my way in to drinks last night.