The House Husband

Another glorious day and I’m certain that the organisers of the Farnham Carnival are all delighted. I saw them popping their witches hats into empty car spaces as cars drove off while I went about my shopping morning. Old chaps, generally with beards, wearing hi-viz vests would spring out from behind innocuous looking vehicles, pouncing like clunky panthers, rejoicing as they claimed another parking spot in Castle Street as if they were engaged in a Chess Masters Final in Moscow. It was all very jolly.

Having an awful lot of fun were the chaps weaving the thick gangle of cables up and over door frames, around posts and brackets, splitting off speaker leads, power leads and other leads, as they neared tables. It is this time of the year that these chaps come out and enjoy themselves, playing at being Festival Organisers, Rock ‘n’ Roll Roadies, Truly Cool Guys. It’s a fun departure from their usual jobs as bankers and brokers and bakers and butchers and Totally Uncool Dads.

My favourite cart

It’s why the funfair is up at the park, of course. The carnival. We are not going though. We have much older fish to fry. We are going to where Mirinda has her book club meetings!

OK, that doesn’t sound all that interesting but really, it is. She discusses the books her group read at the home of Edward Knight who, adopted into the Knight family, was actually Edward Austen. His sister was a rather good writer and it was because of him that the rest of his family settled in Chawton and why Cassandra, Jane’s sister, opened a tea shop across the road.

The house isn’t generally open – although Mirinda goes there once a month – so I was very keen to have a look. As well as the house (and it’s superb library) we were promised Regency Dancing, refreshments, insects, Shire horses and the walled rose garden.

I should mention Summer, the new Shire pony born in the spring. Very cute and still a bit wobbly on its massive feet. Claire, you’d have loved it!

Mother and baby

We had a lovely, relaxed afternoon at Chawton House Library, though we didn’t get to see many insects, and drove home the long way, through the lovely countryside around Alton and Odiham.

The weather is hot. Worse is, apparently, due tomorrow.

Apparently it’s National Insect Week.

Back to school I hobbled. The trouble with gout…well, apart from the actual gout…is the fact that, in order to walk, you have to hobble on the outside of the affected foot. Once the gouty bit eases off, your entire foot aches because of the odd way you’ve been walking. And so, I hobbled to uni with a foot that is sore all over. Still, it’s not as bad as the gout!

Todays first class was about Digital Libraries. Actually, the whole second half of the semester is about them. I missed last week (when I was sick) so I had a quick catch-up on the train. I’d downloaded the notes to my trusty netbook and tried to stay awake reading them. God, I love my netbook. I call her Nettles.

So we listened to Andy as he explained the intricacies of creating and maintaining DLs (as he calls Digital Libraries) and then, after the break mid-class, we huddled in our groups to prepare for the tutorial. Our group is very small. It’s not actually really small but a lot of them weren’t there. Compared to the other three groups, we were minute!

After chatting about all manner of DL stuff, we started discussing who would get up and give the tutorial. Alison said she had the flu so she couldn’t. Maria stated that she’d been dumped on Friday and had been crying all weekend, so she couldn’t. I decided to offer my gout into the mix. Fortunately, Alice was happy to present. She did an admirable, if somewhat rushed, job. Rushed because the other groups had gone over their ten minute time limit, leaving her zero minutes.

Interestingly, Maria was dumped by text. I thought this was just an urban myth. Apparently not. Poor thing. I was dying to ask her what she texted back but she was on the other side of the group and I didn’t want to open any wounds that may have still been tender. For next weeks tutorial, we’ve been paired up so maybe I’ll ask her then.

After lunch in the park – it was a lovely day – I trotted off (slowly) to a far from exciting lecture on indexing and tagging. It was every bit as dull as it sounds. Still, it’s one of those things I HAVE to know. I hadn’t realised that I already knew. A few people took advantage of the mid-class break to escape. I wish I’d been as fleet of foot. Damn gout, defeats me again.

The second half of the class was an exercise. We had to index an article or four. The classroom was very warm. I was getting very tired. The class ended just in time.

I chatted to Mirinda on my journey back to Waterloo. She’d been out looking at flats today and had a lot to tell me. The bus ride was very quickly over. The dogs went insane when I arrived home. Actually, they’re still going insane. They keep hearing something out the back. I’m not letting them go out and bark.

And then, at 7:45, while I was talking to Mirinda on the phone, there was a knock at the door. I thought it was a neighbour come to complain about the girls being too noisy. Standing before me were two clean cut chaps with laminated badges on. I asked what they wanted.

“Good evening, sir,” One started. “We’ve come to give you a message.”

Then I read the badges. The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints. I was very tempted to ask them which saints were the latter ones. Was the cut off St Joan, perhaps? Later? Earlier? I actually really wondered. I think I’ll have to google it because I just said I wasn’t in the least bit interested and shut the door.

Can you believe it? 7:45 at night! A message? I have a message for them. And it isn’t from some mythical spirit creature and some selected heavenly host, either.

Just to prove it was a lovely day, I took this at lunchtime at uni. This is the main building. Isn’t it ugly?

Lunch outside uni

Today we had a guest lecturer. Dr Webster; he works at the uni. It was about the Information Society. His thesis was basically, and argued through to the end, that libraries are past their used by date.

His style was fantastic. His excitement was contagious. Even though I’d had only four hours sleep, he managed to keep me awake for the full two hours. Of course, he drew a few gasps from the gathered future and past librarians. When it came time for questions, the knives came out.

Comments about why we need libraries and why civilisation will collapse without them, ensued. Without fail, everyone who spoke was on the side of the libraries. As you’d imagine. Then Dr Webster asked, if the libraries were so important and necessary, why were they not used as much.

Again, a flurry of snorts as people claimed how crowded their libraries were/are. People prefaced their remarks with “When I worked in a library, it was always full. And it was in Essex!” or “Well, the library I worked in was in a wealthy part of London and was always full.”

Eventually the discussion made its way around to what libraries could do to keep the numbers up. There were lots of suggestions like yoga, pottery, kid’s parties, etc and then, the person who worked in the library “…in a wealthy part of London.”

“A lot of people came into the library during the day because they were lonely,” She said. “I remember one day, this older lady came in and, when I asked how I could help her she said she wanted to know how to go about scattering her husband’s ashes. I suggested she visit a funeral parlour but then the lady stressed that she wanted us to do it together.”

How sad is that? And then, at Waterloo, I was waiting for Mirinda and happened to spot the old Eurostar terminal and it made me VERY sad. So sad, I took a photo.

Old Eurostar Terminal, Waterloo