Something surprising has just happened. For the first time ever I have been given a Kris Kringle present that I really like. Not merely do I like it but I was planning to buy one for myself. It is one of those spiral serving plates that will be a valuable contributor to my entertaining portfolio. Even though the presents were given out randomly S and I ended up exchanging plates. She was not the recipient I had it mind but seems happy. We had our staff Christmas lunch in a rusticky place in Healesville, warm sunny and nice.
Yesterday was our seminar at Hawthorn where I did my three presentations so now there is just one more big academic occasion this year and then it's time to party.
My weekend will be dominated by a pile of Marketing Communications exam papers to mark relieved by a visit to the Playhouse to see Blithe Spirit.

Yesterday was the annual Information Literacy Seminar with Grumpy Girl's graphic featuring prominently on all the promotional media. Apparently a couple of regular attendees declined to come this year because they thought the theme was too risque. So the venue was filled with just the saucier, racier type of librarian who all had good fun with the notion of librarians "embedded'' with the academics. The graphic was on the showbag given to delegates and on the way home on the tram I was accosted by a Customer Services Officer wanting to know where he could get one. Was it a shop? What did he have to buy? I was beginning to glow with maternal pride but then he said, "You see, I know someone called Gale Thomson." What? It was only then that I noticed the name of the seminar's sponsor, Thomson Gale was emblazoned accross the top of the bag. Maternal love is the blindest of all.
The seminar was, as usual, a great day - so social, such yummy food, so many old buddies, such comfort and style at VU's city campus.
At lunch time I walked up to the Charities Card Shop at the cathedral. I hadn't been there for three or four years and something had changed. They now have security checks before you can go in - to the crypt in St. Paul's Cathedral! Once inside however, it was the same lovely place. Lots of elderly ladies to fuss around you, anxious to help. This is the only place in Melbourne that comes close to the feel of a Country Women's Association function - except no pikelets. I was careful not to buy any cards that would support a charity run by the treacherous Protestants: this would have caused my mum to spin in her grave. I stuck to secular organisations like the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Amnesty International and the East Timor Association. I bought some from the Mercy Hospital for Mothers for Mum's sake: the IRA did not have their cards out. I bought two from the Alzheimer's Association which had pictures painted by dementia patients. They were both way better than I could do even now with most of my marbles still in place. Grumpy Girl did not inherit her talent from me.

I seem to have porked up a bit over winter and last year's summer clothes are uncomfortably tight. Dieting's a bore so I've been shopping for some fat clothes. I bought two very practical, style-free, go-with-everything skirts in the hope that my bod will gradually return to normal while I'm wearing them out. This may be a little optimistic over the party season which is already in full swing here. Actually, I'm getting into Christmas this year, having had a year off it while living in a Muslim country last year - a new zest for Christmas is not something I ever expected to experience.

Tim Winton's 'Cloudstreet' has been voted Most Popular Australian Book in a poll run by the ABC while my pick, 'The harp in the south' came in 14th, behind even Bryce Courtney. Good God.

Wednesday is the CRIG seminar where Grumpy Girl's caricature of me gets another airing. This time I am 'in bed with the academics'. Thursday we are having our own Information Literacy forum and I am giving three short presentations which may or may not fascinate and amaze all who hear them . Friday is the first of many a Christmas knees-up, the exams will be over and half our staff are banished to live off their husbands for two months. Such is the fate of academic librarians.