Found in translation

Today we had the first meeting of our book group and discussed Ann Patchett’s Bel canto - a wonderful novel which I was reading for the second time. It’s set in a hostage situation in a Latin American country (so I get my points for Passport to Latin America) - but that sums it up wrongly. Great sweeping themes of love and language and communication and lifelong learning - crystallised in tiny details such as chewed plaits, diced onions, stitches and opera scores. We love Gen, the modest translator who becomes the lynchpin of the whole situation. We were an all-female gathering so we’d love to know what any male readers out there think of the book?

This evening I have been writing an email to a very old friend - a fabulous Frenchwoman who dated an uncle of mine when I was barely 5 or 6 years old. I haven’t been in touch with her for literally decades, but I have always credited her with developing my language skills - she gave me French picture books and wrote out all the vocab, sat with me reading and talking. I still have all those books about 20 house moves later - they are very precious and meaningful to me.

Words are good things to spend time on, and are best shared with others.

Life on the lily pads

Does anyone else feel they are constantly hopping from one lily pad to another but never really getting anywhere? It’s a funny time of year - university vacation but with a surprisingly high number of students around; just back from my own holiday and not quite back into the workaday rhythm; lots to do but no obvious top priority. Fiddle about with a document for our MSc dissertation handbook; log a new FOI enquiry; answer several emails; meet some prospective students; go to a meeting that feels a bit unsatisfactory because we are between several peaks.

Preparations for the CDG national conference are nearing completion, and the delegate list is growing all the time. I’m greatly looking forward to the trip, the venue (City Hall), my stay at the Big Sleep and hopefully a visit to the Doctor Who exhibition in Cardiff Bay. (Good practice for when we get one in Glasgow next year). These conferences are always fun, surprising and attract both stalwart regulars and different people every time. I love meeting folk from different sectors and finding out what makes them tick and what turns their hair grey. I love waffling on in a random but hopefully welcoming manner at the start of the day. And in a strange way I love the randomness of changing locations, never knowing how the journey connections will pan out or whether I will be running the last stretch against the clock (that was Leicester).

Started a new book today - The wind-up bird chronicle by Haruki Murakami. It’s odd but pretty intriguing so far. It will tide me over till our book group completes its online vote as to the first title we will read and discuss.

Extra strong mints help on the first day back

Back to the day job after my week’s holiday. (Actually it feels like about Wednesday already after spending much of the weekend catching up on Career Development Group work.) The whole day is spent processing emails and responding or filing them. By hometime I have got the inbox from 240 down to 30, which is not bad at all. Although I wonder sometimes whether this counts as actually working or whether it’s just rearranging the furniture.

Shocker of the day was finding out that a well-used specialist resource will no longer be available. I’ll be sad to see it go. I like choice and I had chosen this particular resource for sound reasons. Now the choice resembles a Discworld restaurant menu: soss, egg, beans and rat.

A student asks for advice on plagiarism - he wants to include a long paragraph from a particular source, together with all its hyperlinked references.  It’s worrying and I try to explain why this isn’t acceptable and how else can approach his coursework. Feel a bit out of my depth really.

Many CDG emails flying around - dividing my brain between national conference in April, our Raising the bar senior event in June, Presidential Reception and Scottish Revalidation course in May, to say nothing of the much anticipated Scottish screening of Hollywood Librarian. Wondering whether to buy a feather boa specially. Have the hair for a bun but sadly not the training.

If my mental space needs to be partitioned into any more compartments it will require a trip to IKEA for some of those gauzy curtain fabrics. A new colleague joins the team today and has been bombarded with information and paperwork - maybe I could share my IKEA head-curtains.

We are starting a book group for library staff tomorrow, so need to ponder what I’d like to read on all my journeys up and down the country. I’m thinking anything that doesn’t have the word ’strategic’ or ‘operational’ anywhere in the title will be acceptable. In fact a picture book with large letters and a reassuring ending would suit me just fine.

 

Back to life, back to reality

So, I’m just back from a fabulously relaxing holiday in Tenerife. I knew it was time for a break when at the airport I could see monitors displaying “Paris CDG” and found myself wondering how our French Division was doing and whether I should be asking them for their 2008 Divisional Plan. Nuff said.

No truly household names were harmed during our stay, thus demonstrating the fantasy principle that naming something is an inherently powerful act.

Book reviews from my week away:

• Jane Smiley - Ten Days in the Hills: I love Jane Smiley and her books are all really quite different. This one is definitely at her trashy end! A bunch of folks (longlost offspring, ex-partners, business associates, random gurus) spend 10 days together in the Hollywood area immediately after the 2003 Academy Awards. They chat about Iraq, argue, wacth and chat about movies, reminisce and have really quite a lot of graphic sex (unusual for Smiley’s novels). For reading by the pool in 25 degree heat, it was just fine.
• Isabel Allende - The House of the Spirits: finally I got round to reading this absolutely wonderful novel! Epic saga of several generations, each more quirky than the last, a social history of South America but with a light and personal touch. Moving, passionate, funny and tragic by turns. You can keep Marquez - this for me is the real deal - realism and magical but with a plot. I sponsored myself to read this as part of our Passport to Latin America. What shall I read next? Suggestions?
• Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner: yes, yes, another one long overdue. Only halfway through but what a captivating story. See above - moving, passionate, tragic and compelling.

So it’s back to the mountain of emails and post and undone tasks… information overload still alive and kicking… but the cats are pleased to have me home and there are signs that the garden is coming back to life. Loads to catch up on with CDG, great stuff happening all over the place!

Don’t let the sun catch you blogging

Well, here it is, this blog is only a week old and I’m about to abandon it for a week. Hush; dry your tears. We will blog again soon. I’m off to sunny Tenerife tomorrow and Martyn and I have a sacrosanct NO INTERNET pact. I will be eschewing email, web browsing and telephones in favour of novels, conversation, sun, sea and honey rum. Fasting can be good discipline - we once did a corporate fast which included a week off the media and a week off non-essential shopping.

CDG is of course never far from my thoughts, and there’s a lot coming up in the next few months - April will see our national conference and AGM in Cardiff, plus the Scottish Division AGM at the Saltire Centre; May is Council, my Presidential Reception, a trip down to East Midlands Division and our first Scottish Revalidation course, which is shaping up rather nicely (I have a selection of useful Margarets at my disposal). And June is looking distinctly hairy.

In my holiday suitcase is a copy of The house of the spirits by Isabel Allende - always meant to read it and whaat better opportunity than to do so as part of the Passport to Latin America sponsored reading challenge, raising money for the group’s international projects.

It’s not hitherto been public knowledge, but when on holiday I seem to form part of a bizarre Celebrity Death Squad. It started when the Queen Mother passed away during our Spanish holiday in 2002. A trip to Portugal coincided with the last days of the Pope. Other vacations have seen us say goodbye to such luminaries as Jim Callaghan, Mo Mowlam, Brother Roger of Taize, and last year it was the turn of Bob Woolmer. It doesn’t seem to matter whether we holiday at home or abroad; we seem to spread chaos in our wake. So watch the news this week and think of us.

6 impossible things before breakfast

OK, it’s barely 10.00 and already at least 5 things have gone wrong since arriving at my desk. I arrive to find one of our key resources isn’t working and a lecturer urgently needs access to the content. Fortunately the customer service advisor is (a) available (b) pleasant (c) helpful and we get a workaround straight back. My internet access is behaving oddly anyway so can’t help growing feeling of paranoia. Why is it only me that can’t get into stuff? Another lecturer sends me a new instalment in a series of emails. Respond politely, trying to fight the students’ corner a bit. A phone in the office keeps ringing but there is no one at the other end. A phantom fax, maybe? Eventually after reporting to various colleagues we resort to unplugging it. Most disappointing of all, I receive details of a much anticipated new product trial, but can’t get it to activate. Tantalising!

Such is the reality of the business we are in. It’s messy. It’s bitty. Interruptions come as standard. Yesterday I walked 10 feet from my desk to a set of shelves and forgot halfway there what I had come for.

The Famous Five never had to deal with this sort of setback. Until now, that is. I hear they are being revamped this year with a new multicultural mobile-toting gang led by Jyothi, daughter of George. One set of stereotypes replaced with another, though, as the drippy Anne mutates into Allie, the visiting valley girl. Why is it OK to be offensive about Americans? Let’s face it, there are millions of *jolly nice* Americans out there who deserve their lashings of ginger beer as much as the next muddy-kneed mystery-solvers. When I worked in Edinburgh, I had an American colleague and was once or twice mistaken for her on the phone. Hello? New York // slightly modified Cockney?

If Blyton remixes are not your Amazon wishlist entry of choice, perhaps you’ll go for the new Philip Pullman - Once upon a time in the north - a prequel of sorts to His dark materials. We get to learn more about Lee Scoresby and Hester. And we get to taste the real Pullman again and leave behind the oh so seductive visuals but oh so mangled plot of the film.

Happy Easter

It’s not a day for work or even for professional development; it’s a day for the LIFE bit of work-life balance. Why is it we feel guilty when we’re working and guity when we’re relaxing? Or is that just me? It’s been a great day so far. Blazing sunshine this morning (yes, really, in spite of the cold wind!) and I potted up two new patio roses and gave my Cordyline a haircut. Went to church and led part of the service. Joyous hymns but too many high notes! Cooked a roast dinner with Easter eggs to follow. Martyn has a Dalek Easter egg that goes ‘Exterminate’ . It’s a thing of wonder. Domestic dabbling this afternoon and some more holiday packing before the evening service. Saving a glass of wine to enjoy when watching TV adaptation of The colour of magic tonight. Martyn and I like to joke that rare unsigned copies of Pratchett books cost double the signed ones. He does get around, bless him.

All rosy in the garden

Saturday - no work, no visitors, no job applications to write. In fact I get to have some free time! Go to the garden centre and buy compost and pots to pot up the patio roses my inlaws gave me. I am a real newbie to gardening - it’s the one thing I do where it really doesn’t matter if I totally screw it up, and that makes it therapeutic. I’m constantly amazed by stuff that manages to grow in spite of my mauling and drowning it.

Also hop on to good old LibraryThing, fabulous web 2.0 amateur cataloguing tool (I can hear you raising your hands in horror). Check out my complete library here. I add a new book to my personal special collection. This is a small but growing collection of first edition children’s books from the 1970s and 1980s. A little indulgence to remind me, in this age of e-everything, that a book is a Precious Thing. My new book is a copy of The golden key by Victorian writer George MacDonald, beautifully illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Sendak is so much more than just Where the wild things are - not that ‘wild things’ isn’t fantastic. I used to work with someone who is an expert on George MacDonald. Incredible how talented librarians are, and how generally interested in life and stuff.

Continue writing and mailing my reception invitations. It’s not really the upfront stuff that makes me nervous; it’s more the thought of keeping tabs on the many and varied activities of the group, scanning the political landscape and so on. Daunting. But it’s a team effort, right?

Warriors of the deep really IS a turkey. The Myrka is a hopeless lumbering thing that can’t seem to even break through polystyrene. The whole thing feels like a home video of kids in a school playground. Sigh. If CDG was a sci-fi monster, I hope it would be something infinitely more charming and effectual.