A day in town

One of the great things about working in public libraries is the professional development. The State Library puts on plenty of training and subsidises travel for regional and rural library staff. On Tuesday Chrissie and I went to Sydney for a readers advisory seminar about crime fiction at the State Library called Murder in the Metcalfe.

These days in Sydney are very long. Having made school lunches the night before I was able to sleep until 5am but Chrissie got up at 4. She picked me up at 5.40 and we caught the 6.30 flight.

We landed in Sydney at 7.30 and caught a train to Museum before walking through Hyde Park. I love the living corridor of towering trees, so peaceful in the middle of the city.

First stop, the Lindt Café. Carrying these bags around all day prompted many others to pop in on their way home.

This is what we bought. The original plan had been to have a delicious breakfast at La Renaissance, on Kristy's recommendation, but we were given rather more to eat on the plane than we expected and also didn't have as much time as we thought. So, we bought these macarons for later and had coffee.

No sprinkling of powdered drinking chocolate on skinny cappuccinos at the Lindt Café. There was a delicious puddle of real chocolate in the bottom of my cup.

Fortified with caffeine we wandered down Macquarie Street to the State Library. The seminar was great and we learnt a great deal about the many sub-genres of crime fiction and got some great ideas. Neither of us read much crime, though I enjoy watching it. I learnt that I like cosy crime which is when the murders happen "off screen" and the focus is more on characters and settings. Midsomer Murders (or the books they are based on) and Agatha Christie are cosy crime.

The last time I went to the State Library I'm sure we were sent out to find our own lunch, Japanese, of course. This time, we were given lunch and a short break. Having been up for so long did make the session straight after lunch a tough hard to stay awake in and we we very grateful when it was afternoon tea time but the doors were locked - they had forgotten to order afternoon tea! So, when we finished early, we headed down to the QVB for a necessary pick me up.

We shared pistachio and lemon friands.

Not real chocolate, but still good. We got sushi at the airport and were home at 8.30. I had eaten two macarons by 9 :)