Hot weather

Some days have been terribly hot here. More than 30 degrees. It has been just awful to work in the stacks. This is an old house and the heat stays in for a long time. The air conditioning leaves a lot to be asked for, definitely. I have been sitting at someone elses desk often, since the climate in my office is too hot. The janitors bought more fans but it really doesn't help. When we have desk duty, we have to leave the desk occasionally because it's difficult to breathe there. 

The summerworkers are busy putting old material into new boxes, shelving and also retrieving. The number of requests is low right now. The regular work takes perhaps a couple of hours each day. The rest of the time we engage in different projects. I have added extra dissertations to our collection and continued weeding the reference collection. Since there was time, I have also given three lectures. The summerworkers listened to the talks about biographical works, reference books and card catalogues. 

One Saturday when it rained I went to Ikea in Helsingborg. I bought a new desk, which I have wanted for a while. The box was very heavy and I could just about squeeze it into my little car. The material was solid wood so it was a challenge to assemble it also. It took most of the Sunday. It turned out great. 

The past two weekends I have visited at the summerhouse. My mother and I went on a flea market round, since both the ones in Åhus have reopened. There was a line at both places to get in. We bought quite a few useful things, like plastic boxes, new garden chairs and a rake. I bought books for the library. This past Sunday we went to the market in Kivik. It is one of very few markets held this year. We bought some small items.

Midsummer

It's now July and things have slowed down somewhat at the library. We do get the visitors who have personal projects and this is also the time when we hear some rather strange questions. Recently, one person contacted us and by the way it sounded, she wanted us to do the research for her. We said no. 

The book moving project at the storage ended after almost three weeks but they didn't get to finish it. We will have to continue another time. This summer we have three summer workers. There is a long list of chores for them to do, both at the main building and the storage. They also have desk duty every day. 

Some weeks the weather has been really hot, the highest temperature was 32 degrees. The worst part of it was over a weekend, so I sat at home and did very little. I have a sun deck chair on the balcony, which is nice. There are no flowers in the flower boxes this year. Instead I planted dill, basil, chives and brussels sprouts. I have already made use of most of it. 

I made the Midsummer weekend longer by taking two extra days off. My sister and niece joined me at the summerhouse the same day. We had a very good time. We went on an excursion to Österlen one day and my father came to visit also. It was not the warmest water in the ocean but we jumped in almost every day. My niece did not hesitate, she loves taking dips in any pool/lake/ocean/river/any body of water big enough. Midsummer eve was not really celebrated, since there was no maypole but we had lots of good food to eat. The herring was mandatory, of course. The rest of my sister's family came down to the summerhouse in time for the weekend. 

Last week I got the second shot of vaccine. This time the side effects were not as bad as the first time (which is unusual, I hear).