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Sep. 30th, 2013 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikeOn Saturday I made my now traditional visit to the Lothian Bus depot as part of Doors Open Day. This was the first time I went with other people - ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hfnuala and her family joined me, and their neighbour (who is my colleague) and her family were also there. They had added more things this year, with a bouncy castle (bouncy car) and facepainting (or "face pain" by the time one queuer had finished wiping off some of the sign) for children, a bus jacked right up so that you could walk underneath it, and "hybrid bus racing" which rather disappointingly turned out not to be full size buses, but remote control ones on a little track. Still one of the highlights of my year, and I highly recommend it to everyone.
The only other one I went to this year was a behind the scenes tour at the National Library of Scotland, which was good. We got to go and sit in the special collections room, which has a lovely view obscured by metal blinds. This room has an invigilator to watch the patrons constantly, and either a pillow or a foam mini-lectern at each place with some shot-filled cords to hold down the pages. The desk lamps are LED so they don't heat up the books/manuscripts. Then we went right down into the stacks, which looked great, but I would not want to be a shelver there. First of all the books are shelved according to the order of acquisition, which makes sense for some areas, but means that you can't go "well, this is a book by Smith, but I'm standing in front of Jones, so I'll head that way". Secondly the numbers are only written inside the front cover, so you have to open every single book you want to shelve to find out where to put it, and then have to open the books around where you think it should be in order to put it in the exact right place. The changing exhibition at the moment is miniature books, including several world-record holders, one of which was between 1/8 and 1/16 the size of my thumbnail.
My other weekend activity, as I've already posted, was listing loads of things on ebay. I am now trying to refrain from checking how they're doing every five minutes. Currently they are selling for £30 total, of which about £7 will have to go towards postage, which is still a nice amount of money. And there is a week to go! I am also trying not to spend all that money before I even get it. I won a dress last week that is the same as another dress I've previously bought on ebay, only with a green print instead of a blue one. (felinitykat, it's the Phase Eight one that you also have!) Currently I am trying to decide just how much I want a red Bravissimo dress with sleeves and pockets. Quite a lot, probably.
The new Asterix book is going to be set in Scotland. I am looking forward to it, actually especiall since it's a new writing/drawing team, as the last few written and illustrated by Uderzo weren't all that good.
hfnuala and her family joined me, and their neighbour (who is my colleague) and her family were also there. They had added more things this year, with a bouncy castle (bouncy car) and facepainting (or "face pain" by the time one queuer had finished wiping off some of the sign) for children, a bus jacked right up so that you could walk underneath it, and "hybrid bus racing" which rather disappointingly turned out not to be full size buses, but remote control ones on a little track. Still one of the highlights of my year, and I highly recommend it to everyone. The only other one I went to this year was a behind the scenes tour at the National Library of Scotland, which was good. We got to go and sit in the special collections room, which has a lovely view obscured by metal blinds. This room has an invigilator to watch the patrons constantly, and either a pillow or a foam mini-lectern at each place with some shot-filled cords to hold down the pages. The desk lamps are LED so they don't heat up the books/manuscripts. Then we went right down into the stacks, which looked great, but I would not want to be a shelver there. First of all the books are shelved according to the order of acquisition, which makes sense for some areas, but means that you can't go "well, this is a book by Smith, but I'm standing in front of Jones, so I'll head that way". Secondly the numbers are only written inside the front cover, so you have to open every single book you want to shelve to find out where to put it, and then have to open the books around where you think it should be in order to put it in the exact right place. The changing exhibition at the moment is miniature books, including several world-record holders, one of which was between 1/8 and 1/16 the size of my thumbnail.
My other weekend activity, as I've already posted, was listing loads of things on ebay. I am now trying to refrain from checking how they're doing every five minutes. Currently they are selling for £30 total, of which about £7 will have to go towards postage, which is still a nice amount of money. And there is a week to go! I am also trying not to spend all that money before I even get it. I won a dress last week that is the same as another dress I've previously bought on ebay, only with a green print instead of a blue one. (
felinitykat, it's the Phase Eight one that you also have!) Currently I am trying to decide just how much I want a red Bravissimo dress with sleeves and pockets. Quite a lot, probably. The new Asterix book is going to be set in Scotland. I am looking forward to it, actually especiall since it's a new writing/drawing team, as the last few written and illustrated by Uderzo weren't all that good.
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Date: 2013-09-30 02:40 pm (UTC)Good luck with the ebay sale! I hope I will see the Phase Eight dress and a red Bravissimo dress with sleeves and pockets sounds like the Platonic ideal of a dress. They are doing a (full) denim skirt with pockets at the moment and I am tempted.
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Date: 2013-09-30 02:47 pm (UTC)I quite wanted a t shirt with the lion on, but I am being sensible. A full denim skirt with pockets sounds excellent, you should give into temptation.
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Date: 2013-09-30 02:53 pm (UTC)It is this skirt. If I get my talk done this week for next week's seminar, it may be my reward. There's also a cotton floral dress on the website with pockets but it does not have sleeves so I am not so tempted by that.
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Date: 2013-09-30 04:54 pm (UTC)