Hora, Hoedown, Hula, Hip hop and Hokey Pokey at Hornby Library

It took a long time for the public libraries to open after February.  Our closest library is "accommodating CCC staff and not available for library use."  I had found my way to the nearest open library at Hornby only once in May, and before I could get myself organised to take the family June 13th happened, and all the libraries were closed again.

I discovered with delight over the weekend that Hornby had reopened again.  I even tweeted about dancing with joy at the prospect.  So I promised my children an outing after school on Wednesday to check it out.

I picked the girls up from school and headed for the bus stop.  The girls were jumping and giggling while waiting for the bus.  All the children were wriggling excitedly while on the bus.  They didn't walk from the bus stop to the library, they bounced.

Once there I pointed out the children's section.  

The children's section at Hornby Library

Mister Two ran straight to the DVD section, and pulled out a Wiggles disk.  He ran a lap around the children's section, then came back to the DVD shelf and pulled a Chuggington DVD.  Then ran another lap...

Meanwhile, the girls had found another child playing on the computer, so were crowded around watching.

"Come and choose some books, girls."

Miss Five happily ran over, chose a DVD, then spent several minutes browsing the picture books before choosing a handful. 

I caught Mister Two on his lap around the mat, and steered him towards the toddler books.  He grabbed a couple.  "Look at this one," I tried to entice him, "The picture on the cover moves."  Miss Five came over for a look, and I read the story to her.  Mister Two trotted back to the DVD shelf.

Miss Seven was poking at the catalogue computer next to the children's games computer. She was trying to get it to do something interesting, like connect to the internet so she could find an online game.  "The chapter books are over here" I was trying to distract her, "you might find something you want to read there".  Miss Seven ran to the DVD's, grabbed one, then picked out 4 books almost at random from the shelf.  Then went straight back to watching the computer game. 

Mister Two came over with another 3 DVD's.  "No darling, you have enough DVD's.  Lets leave those and we can borrow them another time."  I herded him back to the shelf to put them away.  Then he took off in an anti-clockwise lap.  

"Do you want to come with me while Mummy finds a book?"  

"No," He finished his lap at the computer.  I delegated Miss Seven to keep an eye on him while I headed over to the Grown-Up Fiction section.  As I glanced back around the corner, I spotted Mister Two heading back to the DVD shelf.  

I glanced at the clock.  "Five more minutes then time to go home"

"Awww, but Mum, I've only just started my turn."

" I want a turn too"

"Okay, five minutes turn each then"

I scooped up Mister Two and took the surplus DVD's back to the shelf.  I juggled him on my hip while I went back to the Grown-Up books.  He wriggled back to the floor as I selected a book, and started to aim for the main door.  I dropped the book I'd chosen onto a nearby chair and ran as the automatic door slid open for Mister Two's approach.  I grabbed the boy into a football hold, picked up my book, then went back to the stroller to collect the bag with the children's selections.  On the way past the computer I got the girls to swap turns for the second five minutes.  At the issues desk, Mister Two was happily distracted playing with the stamps. He then got firmly strapped into the stroller for the escape.

When we got home there was only one thing anyone wanted to do.

I think we've all been a bit library deprived.  I don't really know why - it's not like we have any shortage of our own books.