We are delighted to announce that, as from first week in March, we’ll be offering a free story time session twice a week in the library, run by our crack team of story telling volunteers.
The session will take place on Thursdays, between 0930 and 1000. This session is suitable for pre-school children. On Fridays Tell Me a Story will happen between 1550 and 1620, and is for all ages.
Our volunteers are fully DBS checked.
Please note, numbers are limited to 10 children/parents (or carers) due to space constraints, so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. The volunteers will not wear masks as this would interfere with the story telling, but we would appreciate it if other adults could wear masks in line with the library’s current Covid-19 policy. Parents/carers should remain with their children at all times – this is not a drop off session.
As an added bonus, we’ll be offering a book borrowing session at the end of both story times. Come along and join the fun!
We’re hoping to extend our opening hours every week by offering a session on Fridays in the after school slot between 1500 and 1800. We’ve had a lot of demand from local parents and carers of school age children for more time for borrowing after school. At the moment it can be a bit rushed to get to the library after school and to have enough time to browse before borrowing. So we hope this slot will do that. It should also give people on the way home from work a chance to pop in too, with luck.
At the moment we don’t have enough volunteers to operate a cafe service at this time, but we’ll get there as soon as we can. In the meantime, we could always do with more volunteers – sign up here.
Unfortunately the Winter Recital had to be cancelled due to Covid and volunteer availability. It was enormously disappointing for all concerned. Still, the performance was recorded by the musicians and they offer it here for the interest of anyone who would have like to attend but was unable. If you’d like to listen and contribute to the artists’ work, you can do that here: www.paypal.com/paypalme/TaraCliffordPianist
First Half
Second Half
If you like what you hear, a limited number of Tara’s CDs of Debussy’s Children’s Corner Suite are available to purchase directly from her for £7.50 (inc. postage/packaging within the UK). Email taraclifford@gmail.com to order your copy.
We’re excited to announce our first event in the library – a piano and cello recital given by Clare Graham and Tara Clifford
Saturday 18th December 2021
Cricklewood Library, 6.30pm
‘Clair de lune’ from Suite Bergamasque – Debussy
‘Traumerei’ from Kinderszenen – R. Schumann (arr. Barrie Turner)
Children’s Corner Suite – Debussy
‘La Fille aux cheveux de lin’ from Preludes Book 1 – Debussy
Moments Musicaux No. 5 in D flat major – Rachmaninoff
Vocalise Op. 34 No. 14 – Rachmaninoff (Ed. R. Wallfisch)
—INTERVAL—
‘The Swan’ from Carnival of the Animals – Saint-Saens
Cello Suite No. 1 in G major – Bach
‘Prelude – Fantasia’ from Suite for Solo Cello – Cassado
The Snowman Suite – Howard Blake (arr. P. Legg and A. Gout)
We missed it last year, and we expect you did too. So we’ll be back this year and singing lustily. We’ll sing outside, as group singing generates a lot of exhaled breath and potentially germs! Then inside for a mince pie and a glass of something cheering.
Expect the usual mulled wine and mince pies. The perfect start to your Christmas season.
Download the songsheet we’ll be using to print at home or view on your mobile device – saves sharing!
Our first ever in person meeting today, in the activity room at the library. A couple of work-based absences, but most of us made it there in person, with a rather modern dial-in on Zoom by one member. It worked, after a fashion.
Remarkably, a majority of us had read the book this time, and most of us enjoyed it, some with reservations. We talked about the major themes in the book, as we saw them – loneliness, the ethics of “lifting”, artificial intelligence and its role in society, what it means to be human, and the ambiguity of much of Ishiguro’s writing.
As a diehard Ishiguro fan, I loved the book and found it very engaging. Others found it difficult to identify or empathise with the Klara as an AI, although we generally felt her to be more sympathetic a character than most of the humans! There was much to discuss, and I think I’m safe in saying that we would recommend the book to others.
For next time, we will be reading Paradise, by Abdulrazak Gurnah. Born in Zanzibar in 1948 , Abdulrazak Gurnah now lives in the UK and teaches at the University of Kent. Paradise was shortlisted for the 1994 Booker and Whitbread Prizes. Mr Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for literature this year, “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”. We’ll meet at the library, all being well, on Sunday 21 November, 1030-1130. Please do read along and let us know what you think.
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