Christine's space

We’re a small rural town with a small library – and as a result not a lot in it. So of course it’s well supported – not.

There are fewer newspapers than there used to be and the replacement books are the cheap paperback books of lightweight reading.

Now I’ve nothing against Jilly Cooper, Mave Binchy, Sophie Kinsella and others such, but our library is not even a great stockist of such books as The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Other Boleyn Girl or any of the other books that have caught the nation’s fancy and become well read.

As for going into the Science Fiction area and finding more than one of Anne McCafferty’s Dragons of Pern series (and that will be one in the middle which gives you no clue as to anything), or any of the Terry Brookes series of books (well maybe number three of a series of five) ……

So there is a well stocked shelf of spoken word (limited selection again mind), a few very old CDs and DVDs (but more taped videos). Most of us want books not Queen CDs or Teletubby videos.

Perhaps the fact that the central library in Morpeth suffered badly in the floods last year could  be used as an excuse. I fear not though as I came from a well stocked town library and found that I had read most of the limited offer here when I moved in 5 years, 5 months and 1 week ago.

So what do I do? Rely on the family to buy me books, buy books for the family that I want to read when funds allow and borrow from them when they buy books. The whole new swap share scheme then. Now that says it all that in a reading family we actually have to buy books if we want them. I thought that libraries were for people like us who wanted books to read for pleasure or information. Seems not. Sigh.

Yep, the River Tyne in the valley down the hill is over it’s banks and all over the place. It must have been raining a lot.

Let’s just say it rained so hard last night that I jumped out of bed at about 3.30 am thinking that the flat was being flooded again. But no – only wind blown rain lashing on the windows. Outside.

Hey ho, with more to come over the next two or three days according to the weatherman, it’s good to live half way up a nice steep hill well away from the offending river. There are flood warnings on all the usual bits in Hexham, Corbridge and the Riverside Park in Prudhoe. From here I’d say that the last one is fairly well under water.

I don’t know that I will be going to the allotment for a day or three from the looks of the present forecast. Perhaps the forecast is wrong. Hmm – unlikely.

Home with a pile of housework, knitting and books to read seems to be the answer till Sunday.

Well this one anyway. It was nice and sunny at 08:45 so the team of us went litter picking. At 09:30 the rain started so we came home half an hour short of our allotted time despite having moved a damaged child’s paddling pool, a wrecked tent and three or four bags of rubbish.

So I merely changed shoes and dropped into the garden centre for a couple of items for a Christmas present along with tea and cake. Hmm – thank you George for the greeting of “I came in here to get away from you” said with a big grin. He did offer me a lift home which was very nice of him but I’d not done the shopping.

Whilst still dampish, I decided to visit the housing office to see if I could get a cash donation towards the cost of using the dehumidifier that was required to dry the flat out after the last flood. Hmm – housing officer due back in about twenty minutes they said on the desk as her superior, the team leader, didn’t want to deal with it. So I went down the road to the library and found one book to read as well as getting a couple more items for a Christmas present from a nearby shop.

I walked towards home and stopped off again at the housing office. Still no housing officer but I was prepared to sit and wait as I had a book to read. Eventually said team leader gave in and came down to the interview room. It was a very simple explanation of the damage done by two overflowing baths from the upstairs flat.

There was some buck passing back to the repairs department over the electricity payment and not a lot of happiness over a request for help on decorating. “Haven’t you got insurance?” was the question. “Well yes, contents but the insurers say that decorations count as buildings insurance because you can’t take them off the wall and move it if you leave the property and you carry the building insurance” was the simple answer to that one. As I said, it’s not the cost of the paint but the man to go up the ladder and do the decorating as ceilings are involved.

I’m under the physiotherapist with a balance problem involving the ankles so no chance of catching me up a ladder doing decorating. How very convenient. Well for me.

Perhaps other people hate Mondays more than me. Well this one anyway.

It’s far too damp and muddy to work on the allotment despite the jobs that need doing. A walk to the compost trench to add more “stuff” from the house has been as useful as it has been possible to be this week.

There is the forecast for wet and windy arriving here any time now. Windy over night should bring down the last of the leaves so that I could finish sweeping up a few more from down the little road that has been so productive this year. The associated wet that is forecast won’t make the ground any more fit to work on so it’s a case of doing other useful things where possible.

At this point last year the weather was very dry indeed and cold as well. I could have turned and moved the two compost heaps with no trouble at all. But that was then and this is now.

At this rate I might even have to do some housework if all else fails!

It doesn’t make biscuits at all - it sells art - pictures, photography, woodwork, glass, ceramics, jewellery.

None of the items on display are particularly off the main stream of artistic – nothing that would really be found so far towards the cutting edge of creativity that it will frighten the paying public and none of it so large as to need a mansion to house it.

However, one has to ask who is going to use a hand carved coffee table? Would you dare to put it in the sitting room where it’s going to actually have coffee cups put on it? The same goes for hand crafted wooden bowls? They aren’t quite the thing that you would use to put the fresh fruit in when serving a meal or to pass round the table full of sweets.

Would you care for some very attractive glass coasters? Hmm – drop one of those and you have spoiled a set that cost you maybe £40. You’d possibly be happier with the wipe clean, mass produced ones from the supermarket for everyday use. 

Mugs anyone? Well you can nip down the supermarket and see what's on offer, or you can go a little more upmarket with somewhere like John Lewis. You can pay £1 for a mug or upwards of £20 for a set. So are you sure that you want to pay £20 for an artistic mug (very attractive) that you can’t put into the dishwasher? But if mass produced, would they be as individual and attractive as these? 

With so many things so cheap and cheerful because of mass production, would you buy something made by a craftsman for everyday use? I can appreciate that jewellery is personal and could well be tempting if you are out of the teenage years of must have fashion. But what would make you buy a picture by an individual artist when there are so many cheap ones printed on canvas which do perfectly well in a working household?