New Year

Last week I worked Tuesday-Wednesday. There wasn't much to do apart from sorting the returned books. New Year's Eve is usually quiet here and there was nothing out of the ordinary. I made a chicken casserole with cauliflower, and had pecan pie with whipped cream for dessert. Very tasty, all of it. I had a very nice view of the fireworks from my balcony. The four days of leave were spent doing several things. Mostly chores. I went to the grocery stores (there are three in my little town) a few times to stock up on food. It meant that I have also cooked a fair amount for future lunches at work. The freezer is now very full. I also did some handwashing, cleaning and went to the recycling place with plastic etc. There have been a few crosswords solved also. I got a new research request and started on it this weekend. It was the first time I have ever researched the Swedish church records for St Petersburg, Russia. There was a Swedish congregation there in the 19th century. It was interesting, you could tell from people's names that many of them came from the Baltic states and Finland. The ones I was looking for only spent four years there and then went back to Sweden.

The library will be closed to visitors until Thursday. It's unusually long. The staff could work though. I worked today and it was obvious that our patrons had missed the information about the closure. Today and tomorrow most people consider to be normal days. The other large libraries are open. The only day which is a holiday is Wednesday (Twelfth Day). I had hoped we didn't have to drive the storage round today but there were too many requests. We were three staff members and we were busy all day.

It's now below zero temperature outside and a bitterly cold wind. No snow yet. I used my new down coat today and it was definitely worth the money (about 20 USD - a marvelous bargain).