I've had a look at a few blogs and seen how people are tackling 23 Things and it really seems to be giving people food for thought.  I've read about how much people are learning and it's making me want to crack on with the next thing!

 

Hello to Cath and The Archivarian!

I'm (rather belatedly) taking part in the "23 Things for Professional Development" event.  I'm taking part in the course as I am still in the relatively early stages of my career and need all the help I can get with CPD related things.  What I'm hoping to gain is a better understanding of what I need to be doing as far as my continuing professional development goes.  I'm supposed to be typing up my Chartership portfolio but one things I keep bashing my head against is how do I know what I need training on??

My blogging definitely needs improving - at the very least, the frequency of it does but in the main, I'm looking forward to seeing lots of lovely library people

I have had the extraordinary good fortune to be a judge for the Crime Writer's Association's "Dagger in the Library" award this year. Through it I've been introduced and re-introduced to some great writers and terrific crime novels.  Keep an eye on www.thecwa.co.uk - the shortlist has just been announced and congratulations to all the nominated authors!

I've just finished reading Natascha McElhone's book "After You" http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-You-Letters-Husband-Father/dp/0670919098/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282159581&sr=8-1 and immediately felt the need to talk about it.  Twitter's 140 characters weren't really doing me or my ramblings justice, so here I am.

  Firstly, I do love Natascha McElhone despite only remembering seeing her in one film, "Mrs Dalloway" where she played the young Clarissa Dalloway.  I loved the way she looked and the way she spoke in that film and have kept a half eye on what she does ever since.  I remembered reading about her husband's death in the press and after a while reading some of the publicity and listening to people talk about her book on the radio.  My library copy finally arrived and I picked it up today and read it in one big gulp.

  It's not an easy read.  The subject matter makes that obvious but the emotion she puts on the page is so very real.  Nothing has been censored.  She is unflinchingly honest with the way she is feeling and how she and her sons are coping without this much loved husband and father in their lives.  McElhone is pregnant with their third child when her husband a cranio-facial plastic surgeon dies.

  I have been extraordinarily fortunate in my 29 years to never have anyone I was very close to die until my grandmother died earlier this year.  She was old and very sick and her death, although not welcomed was expected.  I loved her dearly but I didn't see her or the other family members I loved who died very often at all.  Kelly's death is described as "carnage".  Reading about the effect that it has on her life is almost like being punched; it winds you physically.  To have loved and be loved so much and then to lose it - I cannot begin to imagine how devastating it must have been.  I really urge you to read this very personal, very honest little book.  Some of the proceeds from the sale of the book go to the charity that Kelly co-founded, Facing The World http://www.facingtheworld.net/home and you can read more about Kelly and his work here http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/martin-kelly-the-face-of-compassion-833657.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/27/breastfeeding-is-creepy-outrage

  This has been blowing up all over the Interweb for the past couple of days now and as someone who has had experience with the bottle and the breast, I thought I'd weigh in.

  The first thing I had issue with is anyone who calls their own breasts 'funbags' - isn't that what teenage boys call them?  That was far creepier to me than the prospect of breastfeeding.

  A little background on my decisions, first of all.  My daughter was born in 2007 and I hadn't really given much thought to the prospect of parenting in itself - I had rather naively assumed that I would breastfeed because it was best for the baby but hadn't given much thought to the practicalities of it all.  Needless to say, when she was born, I realised it wasn't as easy as just sticking it into her mouth.  I did try a few times, but for various reasons including lack of help and external pressure, ended up bottle feeding her.  I felt horribly guilty for at least six months until I realised that it made no difference to her; she just wanted something to eat.

  With my son, I prepared a bit more.  I took a breastfeeding workshop at one of the children's centres and spoke to a breastfeeding counsellor.  I made the nurses at the hospital show me and I stayed at the hospital for two nights to make sure I had just about got the hang of it.  Then, I asked the counsellor to come to my house and I went to a breastfeeding support group.  Twice.  Even now, I'm not sure he's latching on properly, but he's growing and seems healthy and happy.

  The point to all this is, I'm not especially biased either way.  I've experienced both methods.  I know that formula fed children don't go on to be delinquents (although Sofie is only three, so who knows?) and I also know that breast milk isn't a marvellous cure all.  My breastfed son still has eczema and funnily enough, a cow's milk allergy.  Formula is expensive and messy and time consuming and the smell of the stuff starts to get to you after a while.  You have to cart bottles and powder and hot water around everywhere you go.  And sterilizing, ye gods.  Breastfeeding in public is incredibly difficult and sometimes embarrassing to do.  Breast milk also does not smell great and it goes all over your clothes and you have to wear a bra and breast pads ALL THE TIME.

  But feeding your child is not creepy.  Not at all.  The comments from Kathryn Blundell seem the worst kind of cliche and misconception - full of saggy breasts.  I know it's a comment piece and the woman is entitled to her own opinion.  But she's doing that classic female thing of not supporting other women.  OK, you don't want to breastfeed.  That's absolutely fine.  But you sure as hell shouldn't be demonising other women who do feed.

  Both ways are hard enough when you are a new mum.  You buy parenting magazines for support, to know, as C S Lewis's student says in 'Shadowlands' '...that you are not alone'.  Not for this.

So, I didn't watch the England vs USA match the other night.  I sat down in front of my computer, baby asleep in the cot to watch 'All About Eve'.  It's one of the films I had been meaning to watch for ages and seeing as I am on maternity leave at the moment and having a bit of a Bette Davis kick at the moment, I managed to get a copy through my local library.  It's one of those films that's been recommended a dozen times by lots of people I like and admire.

  There were parts of it that were quite shocking.  I'm going to assume that you know the plot, but Eve ending up with Addison and the manner of their relationship - what it must have been like living with each other was uncomfortable, to say the least.

  Bette Davis's character, Margo Channing made a number of very relatable points about the difficulties of being a working woman and how age adversely affects women but I came away from the film with a distinct misogynistic flavour about it.  Margo, as far as I can tell, leaves a profession she is successful in and good at, after many rants about her age, to marry a director and settle down and be a 'wife'.  Karen Richards, the playwright's wife, is exactly that - she aids and abets others whether she knows she's doing it or not and Eve, well, they save the best for her.

  Eve is as much an archetype as her name would suggest.  She is the usurper, the stereotypical plotting female, scheming and conniving her way to the top.  The women are of course, taken in by her whilst the men manage to resist her charms and she is ultimately conquered; tamed by Addison DeWitt (great name, incidentally) who has uncovered her secrets and will use them to keep her where he wants her to be.  The film ends with a foreshadowing of sorts.  We can see what happened to Margo will happen to Eve, a younger, lovelier actress is poised in the wings or dressing room, just waiting for her chance.  And there is no-one she won't trample on to get it.

  Despite all that, I absolutely adored it.  Bette Davis is a whirlwind and you can't help be swept up with her and the film is brilliantly adept at showing real people and all their insecurities, their weaknesses and their petty jealousies and revenges.  The only note that didn't really ring true was the director boyfriend but I think that was probably only because I couldn't imagine what someone like Margo Channing would see in him...

  I think I prefer Now, Voyager though...

  :-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8640611.stm

  I'm completely unsurprised by this.  Money is one of the most difficult things to talk about and deal with and I am utterly envious of those people who can actually exercise some kind of restraint when it comes to dealing with their finances.

I've been away visiting my in-laws in Azad Kashmir since the end of February hence the lack of posts/tweets as there isn't a computer there.  Or even electricity sometimes...

  We flew out with Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) from London Heathrow on 28th February; my husband and I, our two small children and our married cousins.  It was an 8 hour flight with no bassinette for my then 3 month old baby, so thanks PIA.  Actually, thanks to my lovely cousins who held him for most of the journey whilst I was being airsick.  It's bizaarre how these things strike you when you get older - I never used to get travel sick and now it happens all the time.  Landed at Islamabad Airport which has been renamed as Benazir Bhutto International in the five years since I was last there, but I suspect quite a few things have been given her name.

  Anyway, the in-laws are well and my mother in law has now met her grandchildren and the children have now met new aunts, uncles and a host of new cousins.  My niece (by marriage; one of many!) got married whilst we were out there, but I think that deserves a post of it's own...

  We spent six weeks out there all in all and are now (slowly) adjusting to life back at home.

I love to sing.  I can't sing at all; I'm not tone deaf but probably not far off and yet I love, love singing.  I don't sing in public at all anymore after a rather embarrassing Christmas carol concert at school.

  But I digress...

  When I like a song, really like a song, I tend to listen to it over and over and over again, pretty much on a loop until I have got whatever it is out of my system.  At the moment, I am really into the Glee soundtrack, in particular, 'Maybe This Time' and 'Somebody to Love'.  They appeal to the inner diva...

I read a lot.  Not as much as I used to due to marriage and babies but I read like I breathe.  All the time and in the oddest of places.  Am currently reading Christopher Isherwood's 'A Single Man'