Easy Sunday

Sunday was abound with the sound and smell of summer. A land mower was busy working a few doors away and the smell of freshly cut grass intercept with the stinking smell of the burning bbq  from next door. I’d to close the windows and front door because the smell was that bad. What on earth was on the bbq and how on earth could someone eat that is beyond me. We planned to drag Mr. George Foreman out but changed our mind. We’d our steak grilled indoors, again. Promise to myself…I will have a bbq outdoor soon. :-)

We had a few plans for Sunday but first a quick dash to PC World superstore. We thought it opened at 10am but we were 10 minutes early before it opened its doors at 11am. There were already a queue waiting to dash in. First we checked out a few coffee machines on display cos ours gave up on Saturday. Nothing that caught our attention. We checked a few memory cards because the compact one wouldn’t work on Babe’s (semi)broken camera.

Then a pit stop at Brandon Marsh to see if the swallows had arrived. Yes, they were there and was very obliging to pose for us on the wires. Babe got this lovely shot of a swallow with a fly on its beak. Perfect timing. We also saw a few House martins whizzing about and heard the cry of a woodpecker echoing from deep in the woods.We didn’t stay long because we need to do a bit of shopping and then checkout Whitacre Heath. As we were getting into the car, I saw this Pied wagtail flying from one car to the other. What was going on??? Then I realised that he was fighting with his own reflection. It was quite amusing.Back on the road, we noticed drivers behaving badly. They were speeding all over the place, overtaking cars driving like idiots in their toy tin cars. A bit of sun out and they drive like prats. Perhaps they think that they are Lewis Hamilton who had won the 2011 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai earlier. This very inconsiderate behaviour really wind us up that we decided to chill out at home. We just couldn’t stand a minute longer on the road.

I spent the day cleaning the tiny plastic greenhouse where I’ve got 3 troughs of salads, 8 pots of white beans seedlings and a pot of leek seedlings. I need to get the tub ready and purchase more composts to transplant these leeks. I’ve sowed pak choi, sweet peas and tomatoes.  Fingers-crossed with the warm weather, they should germinate quickly. I also need to nip to the garden centre for Lobelias, Bidens, Marigolds, Fuchsias and Geraniums to start on the hanging baskets. I couldn’t wait. It was the World Snooker Championship weekend. I was looking forward to my favourite player, the Machine from Down Under, defending his title. But it was not to be.  Judd Trump came to Sheffield with the wind in his sails and produced a dramatic 10-8 win over Neil Robertson, to secure his place in the last 16 of the world championship. I hoped my next favourite player, the Jester from Lester, Mark Selby, will do his best.

Saturday morning was spent out with the girls. It was RC’s belated birthday and we decided to celebrate it with a Thai meal because it was also the start of Thai’s new year or Songkran. I took the bus into town. As I got down the bus, I noticed these shining vintage cars on display outside the Coventry Transport Museum. I wanted to find out more but I got a date to keep.

Behind Primark, a stage was erected and someone was playing easy listening music on the organ. There were a few police cars parked nearby, lots of policemen, community support officers and stewards about. Huh??? A group of gospel singers from Plymouth were going to perform. A steward gave me a brochure and they looked pretty amazing. I only managed to listen to one performance because I’ve got a date to keep. The police presence was to keep the peace cos there was another home game.

I dashed towards The Herbert to meet CC and RC. We walked towards the London Road passing through several Coventry University buildings when I spotted this medieval structure. Another piece of the castle wall that surrounds the city, perhaps.Then we passed through this building which was the Toy Museum. What a pity it was closed. I’ve heard of this Museum before but never knew where it was. I really loved walking under this ancient arch with its timber floors and stone pavement.After walking under the ring-road, we reached our destination, Thai Dusit which meant Buddhist paradise. We were greeted with Sawadee before we chose our seating in the very tastefully furnished restaurant. After a long discussion over the menu, I chose the cleansing zingy tom yam (traditional Thai hot and sour clear soup flavoured with lemon grass, fresh chillies, lime leaves, galangal and mushroom) for starters. It was followed by Pad Gratiam Prik-Thai (stir fried prawns with garlic, ground pepper, leek, onion and peppers) with egg fried rice and finished with yummy coconut halves (half of coconut filled with coconut ice cream). All washed down with gallons of steaming jasmine tea. We’d fun diminishing the wonderful food and female bonding.About 2 hours later, it was a very slow dawdled back into the city-centre. We passed through this red letter box that was built during the reign of Queen Victoria. I’m glad it was saved. From a distance, we could hear the gospel performers singing their hearts out. I didn’t have time to window shop for clothes or shoes but still managed to buy bits and bobs. I bought Rainforest shampoo and hair-conditioner from Body Shop, at the market a pot of poppy, leek seedlings and rocket. At Poundland, I bought birdseeds, fluffy, yellow Easter chicks in tutus (???) and Chinese Lantern cuttings, a lovely azure blue scarf which I’m going to use as a table-cloth from one of the stalls in West Orchard, dried egg-free noodles and sweet rolls from the Chinese shop. We stopped to listened to these buskers belting out Neil Diamond’s. Along with a few bystanders we sang along, tapping our feet to Beautiful Noise,  Cracklin` Rosie, I Am... I Said, Song Sung Blue, Sweet Caroline etc. etc They were good.Then it was time to go our separate ways. A few policemen ran past me.??? There was an incident just near the stage. 2 groups of drunken football fans were hurling abuses at each other. There were already a dozen policemen trying to keep them apart. Pockets of aggression erupting here and there. Not a good scene. I quickly got onto my bus and it drove away quickly. Phew!!! I don’t want to get caught in the middle. Sky Blues defeated Millwall 2:1. Coventry’s victory over their 10-man opponent had dented the London club's promotion hopes. Well done boys.

WFP returned to work after his paternity break. I wrote a brief piece to be included in the news bulletin and made the biggest hoo-haa in my career. Instead of putting HQ777.35 which was the LC classification number for twins, I had typed in HQ77 for transvestites. OOPs !!! RC spotted it and immediately I sent an addendum. Of course, everyone wanted to know why and it spread like wild fire. But at least I kept the Library buzzing with the intricacies of the Library of Congress Classification System :-).

I also attended an executive briefing on RDA or Resource Discovery and Access, a new set of standards in London. Since the launch of RDA in June 2010, libraries have been watching the news for information on the implementation. But still there was no confirmation. Still more talks, discussions and debates. The Library of Congress had been leading trials of RDA alongside current workflows for Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2), and  a unique personal update was given by its Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access.

A presentation from Talis, a library management system specialist, led to some serious things to consider. CTC from Cambridge University shared how they have been preparing their cataloguing teams for the new code, including the impact of the gradual creep of RDA records into downloads from consortia. The effect of RDA on record sharing practices was later discussed by OCLC's Director for WorldCat Quality Management.

The 2011 Briefings was the first event in the UK to update delegates on the latest news about the intensive test process, ahead of the final report from the Test Steering Committee which was due in the summer. Everyone wanted to know about training and costing but no one was able to provide answers until the Library of Congress confirmed its commitment. So another waiting game. I had a difficult time writing my report because I still don’t have the answers on how my department should proceed.

On Friday, my colleagues and I checked out the Customer Services teams’ display boards. This was produced during their “What do you Do” training session conducted in March. We were piled with coffee and biscuits as we browsed and commented on what was on display. That Department was huge and it had its fingers in every other departments too. It was good to know who was doing what and put the faces to the names. A very productive end to the week.

I later went out for my lunch-break to checkout these beautiful displays of pink cherry blossoms. The white ones have already withered to the ground and I just had to admire these before they too will be blown away by the wing. Utterly amazing.   

 "Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless?  To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring - these are even more deeply moving.  Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with flowers are worthier of our admiration."
~Yoshida Kenko~