This doesn’t really look like the standard library does it? Not with all the utes parked and strange looking things, including a cement mixer, at the front. Where are the books?
Well, this is my new library! I have a friend who I swap books with fairly regularly, but we don’t ever seem to be in town on the same day! This poses a problem!
In this farm merchandise store, we leave our precious books on a iron shelf, next to bearings, chains and all sort of other things that farmers need to run their farm! This is the shelf, that the blokes stride in off the street to see! Has the machinery dealer has left my parts here? Or the vet has left some antibiotics for my horse? They then gather it up, put their order in for chemicals or drench, scribble a signature on the invoice and stride away again!
Vic or I walk in smiling hello to everyone and ask if the other has been in this week with some more books! We collect them up, smiling sweetly again and, thanking everyone for their time, disappear out the door, to the closest cafe, coffee and cake! We sneak ten minutes of bliss in, reading, coffee and no interruptions, before we fly around town, picking up our groceries for the week and any farm jobs that need to be done.
Once we get home, we madly read and then ring each other to dissect the book.
The joys of country life and, thank goodness for telephones!
I really like this…it paints such a great picture of life in the country. Reminds of when I worked in the library at Orroroo…we’d send books to people by all sorts of creative methods!! (school buses were useful!)