Another Day

There isn't of course any such thing as an average day. I mean every day is different, different things happen to you, and yet there are some days that feel totally and utterly average.

My days usually start off some where between 7 and 7.30 am. My alarm is et to go off at 7.30, but I'm usually awake sometime before that. I sleep very lightly and living a few metres away from a dual carriageway that is the main thoroughfare between the M3 and the M4 doesn't really help me. There is traffic all night racing up and down the Bagshot Road, so it is a rare night indeed when I sleep all the way through. Sometime around 7.15 a van sits outside our house with its diesel engine chugging away waiting for the boy from the house opposite to come out and go to work, and that's the time I'm woken up most days, or else its 7.20 when my housemate Mark's radio comes on very loudly to wake him up.

Everyone has a different morning routine and the one I've settles on that seems to work for me is this. I get up and turn off the alarm. That's a good start. Then I get dressed, pulling on my work clothes, a pair of trousers and a jumper more often than not (I'm blessed with a relaxed attitude to work clothes in the Library), and then its downstairs. I make my sandwiches for lunch. I had it drummed into me since I was a child that making your own packed lunch for school or work was a good thing. I've never really been one for buying sandwiches really. It seems an awful waste of money for something you can make just as easily yourself. Mum was right after all, as she has been on so many things. Corned beef and salad today. Yum. Tea is on the go at this point too, and breakfast. I always have breakfast. I couldn't function without it. A good bowl of cereal sets you up nicely for the day ahead. Tea is of course essential. I'm a complete tea addict and have more than several cups a day, but the first one is always the best! Breakfast is accompanied by a quick look at Planet Skaro. I'm an addict to the place, as is well known, and I like to see what's been going on overnight, and keep a check on what my boyfriend has been writing into the wee small hours. Sometimes I even get an MSN conversation with friends in Australia. Mark usually appears sometime around 8, looking half asleep and we grunt at each other a bit and tell each other we look really dishevelled and not with it at all. Good thing we're really good friends.

About 8.15 I go to the bathroom and get myself presentable for the world outside. I hate shaving you know, but I'd hate to have a beard, so its the lesser of two evils. I always take a moment to look at myself in the mirror and I'm beginning to notice my skin is tightening up now. There are a few lines around my mouth and some crows feet appearing at the sides of my eyes. Well, of course, the years I was a smoker rather took their toll on me, but generally it doesn't look like I'm in too bad shape. Sometimes I forget I'm heading for 30 now; I still feel as if I'm in my early 20s. I brush my teeth, wash my hair and attempt to put it into some kind of order. Some lovely smelling fibre-puty stuff usually does the trick, but even before I've left the steamy bathroom the spikes at the front have begun to lie down. I'm not surprised, the same thing happens every day.

By 8.30 I'm just about ready to leave the house. I've packed my book and my lunch and anything I need to return to the library in my little rucksack, put on my lovely big grey scarf and my coat, selected a mini-disc to listen to one the way to work and its time to be off. The walk to work takes about 15-20 minutes. Its about a mile and with my long legs and fast walking speed its not too bad at all. Rainy days are a bit of a pain, but there's always an umbrella. I've never learnt to drive, and the buses are terrible around our way, so walking is the only option for me. I enjoy it. It sets you up for the day and by the time I've walked in I'm all awake and alert for the day ahead. There's nothing very interesting on my walk to town. I walk the same way each day and some days its like going on auto-pilot. I listened to lemonjelly on the way this morning. Their album "Lost Horizons" is an amazing piece of work. I pass a secondary school, but as its half term the naughty kids aren't outside the gates smoking today and the whole trip is uneventful.

I arrived at Bracknell Library at around 8.55. The library was built in 1971 and is a big square concrete block, so beloved of town planners at that time. the Council building opposite is exactly the same only taller and more rectangular. Its not a great building to work in. There are lots of windows on each floor, but they only open a little, and so there is very little airflow. The powers that be will not install any air conditioning, and so with he under floor heating we're too warm in the winter and far too warm in the summer when the whole place becomes an oven. last summer the borrowers were treated to the sight of my legs in shorts. Lucky them!

Our day at work is divided into three, and depending on which hours you are working you work different shifts serving the public. If you're on until 7pm, you tend to do the morning shift on the counter until 1pm, then its lunchtime, you work downstairs behind the scenes for the afternoon and then return to the counter at 5pm for the final two hours. if you're on until 5pm, you work downstairs between 9.30 and 12, then go to lunch and do counter duty from 1 until 5. Simple really. There are usually anywhere between 2 and 5 of us working on the counter at anytime, depending on how many staff are rotated in, and how busy it is. We're a good and happy team for the most part. We're support staff and we do the actual serving of the customers, and the bulk of the work in the place, reshelving the books that are returned, dealing with queries, as well the behind the scenes stuff like the deliveries of returned books for all the branches in the borough, mending, rejacketing and discarding book stock and being a thorn in the side to the librarian team. The last one isn't actually in our job descriptions, but its how it feels a lot of the time. We tend to get somewhat taken for granted you see, and its forgotten that the place couldn't run without us. Still we all enjoy our work for the most part and we've got a great mix of personalities. There are lots of middle aged women (I seem to get on terribly well with them), and in the week I'm the only male in our team which makes me responsible for ever crime committed by every male ever. Its a tough burden you know! Everyone has their own little foibles. There's Anna who takes all morning to deal with her emails, there's Carol who seems to be constantly on holiday (she flies out to Australia today for 3 weeks), Val who has been working in libraries since the 60s, Viv who is bubbly and fun, Pam who is off to live in France at the end of next month, Ally who I never seem to get to work with very often, Jackie who I spend my time sparring with and our line manager Gill and her assistant Julia, who look after our general well being. Gill is an amazing manager. She's been working in the service for 20 odd years now and knows the place inside out. She fights for us when she has too and really looks after her staff brilliantly. It causes her a few problems with some of the people at the top, but I know we're all incredibly grateful to her.

The best thing about being a close team like this is that we all look out for each other's well being. I've been with the library for three and a half years now, and in that time there have been some real tragedies, Gill's dad died, Anna's husband Michael dies of a heart attack suddenly and she was crushed by it, Viv's sister battled against cancer for a couple of years and my nephew was rushed to hospital after he was born when it was found no oxygen was getting round his body. Its in times like these that we all make sure we're coping ok and do what we can for each other. I for one am pleased to be part of such a caring group of friends. Our nights out together are a thing of wonder too.... very loud, giggly and drunken! Not what you'd expect from a group of library staff I'm certain!

I usually get a lift home after work from one of the team heading back my way. After being on your feet most of the day that is a definite bonus! I've usually got a couple of bags of shopping with me, as I tend to pop to the supermarket at lunchtime most days and pick up a few bits. This is one of the problems of not driving. You can't do a big shop, because there's the constant problem of having to get it home. Its a small thing, but one that plays on my mind.

So I'm either home by 5.30 or 7.30 depending on my shift. if I'm home at 5.30 I come in have a cup of tea, spend an hour or so on the net, catching up with emails, MSN and Planet Skaro, and hopefully Steven too, and then cook dinner. If I'm back after 7, dinner is the main priority. I need my food! I'm a bit of a lazy cook these days. I don't have the time I'd like to dedicate to my cooking, so I tend to cook some curries or pasta or something with a cook in sauce. Its quick and easy and when you've had a long day at work that's a godsend. As I'm generally only cooking for myself I tend to make an extra portion or two and freeze them, as its difficult cooking for one. That makes the late nights even easier as I tend to just pull one of the meals I've cooked already out of the freezer.

The rest of the evening is taken up with phone calls to or from Steven (which is always a good part of the day) and with other friends too. I try and write a couple of entries in my on going diary each week too , and they tend to take an hour or so to do, but its well worth it. I like having my life nicely chronicled. Then before bed, there's usually a bit of reading, maybe some TV (although I don't tend to watch anywhere near as much as I used to) and maybe an episode or two of a Doctor Who CD if I'm in the mood for it.

I like to be in bed by 11. I need lots of sleep, and being a light sleeper living next to a dual carriageway its not always possible. Ah well, at least the rent on the house is reasonable!

So that's it, just another day. Of course no day is entirely like that, but it gives you a glimpse into what my life is normally like. I just hope I haven't bored you all too much!