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Sunday, November 26, 2017

Discounts

I have 20 days of vacation to use before the end of the year so I'm not at work that much. Last week I was away two days. Monday I went to Ikea in Helsingborg to taste their Christmas buffet. The selection of pickled herring was great, especially the one in crayfish sauce. The veggie gratin was also very nice. Naturally, I also made some purchases while there but only some candles and minor items. This Friday it was Black Friday, which is something we have copied from the US. The stores had huge discounts on many things. I did go to a mall after work and came home with a top, an alarm clock and some house plants. All very affordable. Previously I also bought a new fake Christmas tree since the other one was old and not in good shape anymore.

At work I have engaged in shelving. Since I haven't done that in many months, it was exhausting. Apart from this I was asked to pose for photographs for our website and information material. I'm not sure they will use images of me for anything, though. Some of my colleagues had to pretend they were in a meeting for these photographs.

Most weekends have been about research. Nothing really exciting worth mentioning, just some more clues about the emigrants from Hjärsås and Knislinge parishes.

Friday, November 17, 2017

Last event for the social club

Last weekend one of the large genealogy database providers had a free access period. I made use of this. I spent both days at work searching for more clues using the databases with scanned material I normally don't have access to. I found some information about my great great grandfather who was a sailor. It was difficult to track him in the records but I got the names of at least some ships he sailed on. There was also an obscure file with various death records handed in to the regional court during the 19th century. To my great surprise there were death records for about 20 years for Hjärsås and Knislinge parishes for a time when the church records do not exist (almost everything before 1860 was destroyed by fire). It was a great find.

This week at work was rather busy. There are the usual meetings to attend, of course, but also other things to do. Yesterday we had the very last social club arrangement. It was basically a wake. After 44 years the library management decided to cancel the budget for all the activities. We were nine people on the board who arranged excursions, bowling evenings, lectures and parties with various themes. It was appreciated by the employees and we are all upset about this incomprehensible decision. Without any money we can't continue, that's the harsh reality. For the last event we had produced a booklet about the history of the social club. There were photos and descriptions of the activities during all the years. It turned out to be 63 pages. I wrote a large part of the text and also a page with my memories of some of the activities. I was the chairwoman for the last seven years. At the wake I was given flowers and some chocolate for my long commitment.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Back to work

Tuesday last week, which was the last day of freedom, I went on a relatively short shopping trip to Copenhagen. There were train problems so I arrived over an hour later than planned. I made only a few purchases, two tops and some socks, but it was a nice visit.

I started working again last Wednesday. There were no great surprises. I had an enormous amount of emails to go through. I have spent some time talking to my colleagues about the future work and all the projects we need to do. There were also five cases of missing books to search for (so far I have found three). The first workday the department head invited us for coffee & cookies, which was very nice. It took quite a while before I understood that it was in my honor. They wanted to wish me welcome back. It seems like they have really missed me...

I only worked two days last week because Friday I had an appointment at the hospital in Malmö. The port-a-cath was removed. It was a minor operation and I was awake. The nurses put on some rock music, which was very enjoyable. The staff members were amazing, actually. They made sure I was comfortable and that I knew what to do if the wound would bleed a lot. Afterwards they gave me cheese sandwiches and apple juice. Not really what you expect in our health care system, where budget cuts are frequent. I'm very glad the port-a-cath is out because it was annoying to have.

This weekend I didn't do anything because of the wound. Did get some groceries but that was all. This week at work is about the same as last week, I try to get everything organized and try to catch up with all the news. I went to the storage to search for a missing book (found it) and realized that we definitely need to do some shelving there. The piles of returned books were large.