Back in the local library

Until the first of the Covid lockdowns I was a weekly volunteer in our local library. Since then it has been closed for much of the time. Even when it reopened for limited click and collect services, I didn't go back on the rota, as I wasn't sure how my "childcare bubble" routine would evolve.

Now the library is slowly expanding its opening hours again, and arrangements with the grandkids have settled down. So today I had my first shift in over a year.  The photo shows the entrance from inside, with a table ready for people to return books and wait for new ones to collect. On the left are the shelves of books for collection, all wrapped carefully in brown paper bags with the borrower's name written on them.

What a pleasure to be back there. No borrowers inside the building as yet; it's all reservations for collection. So it was an easy  start. It's quite hard to trust these little steps forward; it feels as if they could be snatched away again easily.  Fingers crossed.