 |
I should like the crystal ball to shew me what my
husband will be like. |
Disclaimer: In this blog, I was going to
write about my new place to visit in Pretoria: my public library. On the way, however, I became distracted by
everything near the public library that I have discovered that I also
love. So this post will take you to the
doors of my library, but no further.
Just so you know what you’re getting into...
I have for many years been a compulsive
book buyer. My family have learnt to
roll their eyes and find something time consuming to do if they take me within
fifty metres of a book store as I will immediately find my way in and browse (and
frequently buy) to my heart’s content. Now
I own a *kindle* which I love, particularly when I am addicted to a series as I
no longer have to rush frantically from store to store trying to find a copy of
the next exciting part of the saga.
This year, however, as I fall deeper and
deeper down the rabbit hole that is my Masters thesis, all my mind wants to do
is delve not into more rabbit holes, but into popular science, economics,
history, poetry and shallow popular fiction (I won’t tell you what, it is entirely too embarrassing). I have also been the victim of the vagaries
of the scholarship system and I have had nothing to spare for book
purchases. I could take out books from Wits University’s libraries, but I have often filled my card with work-related
books, and every time I step into the libraries I feel obliged to take out
something, if not work related, thenat least literature that is high-fibre: you know, the stuff
that’s good for you.
 |
| She asked the fates to let her sons have long, long lives. |
So, propelled forward by my addiction to these
shallow and air-brushed forays into the human heart, I ‘phoned the National Library
Services (based here in my very own Pretoria) and found out where my nearest
library is situated, which while not within walking distance, is in one
of the nearby tree-ed neighbourhoods. Zama
and I set off down the road and after driving twenty minutes too far into the
wild green yonder and turning around, we finally found the place.
It is just up the road from an
honest-to-goodness park, replete with a see-saw, swings and a slide surrounded
by grass. Opposite the library is a
neighbourhood shopping centre: an old-school one with an Indian-owned
green-grocer that sells fresh flowers, vegetables and fruits. When I walked there from the bus stop one day
I bought a punnet of fresh raspberries and ate them then and there, leaving my
fingers stained pink. There is also a
pet-grooming parlour and a Chinese restaurant with an outdoor area canvassed with
red fabric to protect it from the wet. There
is even a corner cafe and bakery that sells R1 orange ices so filled with sulphur
dioxide that I coughed every time I took a sticky, icy bite (and yet I just kept right on eating that thing...).
They have a car boot sale there every so
often. There are second-hand clothes, white
elephant stalls and (of course) a woman with a table filled with second-hand
books, left to her by emigrating relatives and friends. I know I said I don’t have money for books
this year (and that was the whole reason I joined the public library) but then
I found “Stories from the Faerie Queen”, a children’s book given by The
Hatfield Baptist Sunday School to Violet Cross for Attendance and Good Conduct
at Christmas, 1929.
 |
But the knight was Britomart, the fair lady with
a man's armour and a man's heart. |
To misquote Hadley Freeman (who is misquoting
Charlotte Bronte): Reader, I bought it.
And I am letting you share in my good fortune by peppering this post
with some of its whimsical illustrations and captions (albeit in blurry photographs from my humble blackberry camera).
I hope you enjoy (and that your appetite has been whetted for my next
post: what I found in my public library).
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