Hello...? Anyone still there? Thought not! Well, it has been a while.
I thought about launching in with why I have decided to start adding to this again; but on further consideration I realised that explaining why I stopped is probably necessary, so here goes.
Ok, well, the week after the end of 23 Things was my third Study School in Aberystwyth. That was the first disaster. I went along, confident that I would get on as well as I had at the first two schools... only for that confidence to be shot down in a flaming mess when the reality assailed me. That reality (which I don't think was really made clear by the course team) was that not having a topic for one's dissertation was a bad idea. I expected to be able to get help choosing my topic, and as such was disappointed. I did not expect to leave Wales feeling as if I had done something wrong by concentrating on my taught course and getting 110 credits!
The second disaster was another case of expectations being wrong, in a way. My expectations that Saturday morning in May were that the ceiling would stay put (I even gave it a poke with my umbrella!!). It didn't; and I was fortunately not under it when it decided to give up. I did, however, have to decamp to the next-door room, have all my stuff covered in dust, and have to put off sending in my last assignment for my last module because I couldn't study due to being keen to get home most evenings to see how the repairs were going.
That was May taken care of, although the early arrival of my nephew Jack on the 30th was a highlight.
June was promising... right up until the morning when I woke up with chicken pox. No photographic evidence of that exists; I spoke to four people face to face during my 12 days of quarantine and only survived with my sanity intact thanks to patient friends and family who listened to me whine.
So, now we get to why I have decided to take this blog up again. Well, for a start there's been no major upsets in July! I am beginning to feel as if I can report on things library and not so library without having to mention anything sad or unpleasant.
Also, there are major changes afoot at the Bodleian, and I feel the need to give my slant on things. Before long the reading room where I work will close, and by the end of the year the staff will be moving out of the building in preparation for the redevelopment of the New Library. Already much is changing, and I think recording my thoughts on this will help me to feel as if it isn't passing me by. I will try to keep giving regular updates, keep it more-or-less library related and keep things amusing (I have some pix of bad hyacinths outside the National Library of Wales which I must use). For now, though, I think that's quite enough!
