grey skies and stolen books

 

Dear Friends,

Sorry for my quietness at this little space this last week - it has been filled with lectures, studying, teaching and running by a lake taking photos of swans & toy animals. (Sound a little strange? Welcome to the world of teacher training in Bath.)

I am finding that I miss all of the good light during the day for taking photos to post - it is now the case that it is dark when I leave in the morning and dusk when I come home at night, which makes for poor photography.

 

Friday was a particularly grey day when the sky has looked ready to rain for the whole day. Normally I find the grey skies make me sad, but today, they did not. Today, I enjoyed watching the weight of the clouds shift and change until they relented to let the rain fall. I waited all day for the rain, and on my way home it finally came.

My day ended on Friday with a trip to the University Library. One of the wonderful things about Bath Spa Library is that it has a room especially dedicated to teaching resources for people like me who are trying to learn how to be a teacher. I have discovered their children's audio books, which I have started borrowing to listen to on the hour long journey to and from home and uni. Having finished listening to 'The Hostile Hospital', a Lemony Snicket story, I went in search of a new audio book. In the process of browsing the aisles of the resources room, I happened upon a lovely old orange book called 'Nonsense songs and stories'. The title alone was enough to allure me, and with a quick flick through the pages to discover simple pencil drawings reminiscent of old childhood books, I added Nonsense songs and stories' to my growing stack of books to withdraw.

There is a clever self withdrawal system at Bath Spa Library, whereby you can check-in and check-out any books you would like to return or withdraw. As I was merrily scanning my books, I discovered that Nonsense songs and stories was so old that it had been missed out when the university phased out the old-school date-stamping system and brought in electronic barcodes. Anyhoo, this story is going on for far too long. What I am trying to tell you is that I ended up inadvertently stealing this lovely old book - having intended on asking a librarian for help, I had carried on checking out all of my other books and popped them into my book bag. Nonsense songs just so happened to end up with all of the other books in my book bag. While I am sure the library probably won't miss this unassuming orange book, I will do the honourable thing and return it after I have enjoyed its contents.