Business as usual

Well I say business as usual but I haven't really decided what usual will be yet so as I am in the habit of posting daily at the minute (and I did promise) I figured I would post.

So, have any of you guessed what a late night hang out at a library and fairy dust have in common??

A torchlight procession of course! Now I don't really know much about the history of the torchlight processions, something along the lines of Clitheroe holds a celebration of this manner every time there is something to celebrate (the Queen's jubilee, millennium etc..) but when faced with the question 'Would you like to dress up and join in with the library's entry to the parade?' my response, 'Why the hell not!"

These are the reasons that flew through my mind in the second or two it took me to make my decision, roughly in order:

1. I get to dress up and have fun - cool, I love my job!
2. A great chance to get to know my lovely new work colleagues - bonus!
3. Promote reading to the next generation - worth a late night at work, right?

The decision was made to decorate one of our mobile libraries with characters from the Lancashire Reading Trail (brief background - we have a reading trail in our libraries to encourage children to read. They collect a series of 13 character cards and stickers on their trail map as they read their way through 50 books to complete the quest and find the Lancashire Reading Dragon). Along with this those of us mad enough would dress as the characters and walk the route of the procession with the mobile library. I opted to be a dream fairy, although I was tempted to be a book eating werewolf, you can read more about the trail characters here. Go on which one would you be?

Any way yesterday was the day, I finished work then relaxed in a quiet library for an hour or so (ironically not actually touching a book in that hour or so) and enjoyed a locally made sandwich, coffee and cupcake. Then the magic began, I mean seriously it was going to take some serious magic fairy dust to turn me into a dream fairy!!

I resorted to stealing my daughters sparkly makeup, curtains, fairy wings and a little fairy dust later became this:

scary I know!

What ever I looked like and whatever the weather (it rained most of the way round) we had an amazing night. Stickers were handed out to hundreds of kids, smiles and waves a plenty.

My fabulous boss lady as the Pioneering Princess

My fellow Dream Fairy

The mobile library complete with the Word Sucking Vampire, Singing Mermaid, Burglar Boy, Ghost of Astley Hall and Pioneering Princess. Our very own Word Sucking 'Van'pire was driving with the Lancashire Reading Dragon as his passenger.

 

You can see some pictures of the other floats and participants here.

 

After we had finished the procession and returned wet and tired to the library there was just time to dry off and have a brew before we all raced in to the darkened reference library, like giddy children, to enjoy the fireworks display at the castle. We got an amazing view and stayed dry all at the same time. It's the most fun at a firework display I have had in ages; oooing and ahhing at the colourful sparkles exploding across the sky. It's great to be a kid once in a while ;-)

 

Picture courtesy of Sarah aka the Reading Prince.

 

 

The only thing left to say is a huge thank you to everyone that made last night a really fun night!!