LIBRARY LIFE

Gladstone's Library, Hawarden

WE are on the lookout for volunteers this week.

Gladstone's Library is a charity, and while we have brilliant staff members, we always welcome another pair of helping hands.

We have already written about the work that volunteers do to help preserve our books. But there are openings for all sorts of roles - among them, gardening.

The grounds of Gladstone's Library are a popular spot for visitors, particularly on sunny days.

We have contractors who help keep the big tasks in hand, mowing an acre of lawn, for instance.

However, the smaller, but no less satisfying and important ongoing work of weeding, pruning and caring for flowerbeds, bushes and trees, is largely carried out by a small and dedicated squad of helpers.

In fact, calling these 'smaller' jobs is probably inaccurate: while snipping a withered stem is the work of a moment, there are metres and metres of borders to care for.

Like so many things, big jobs are much easier when shared between many hands, and spending time in the gardens is seldom a chore.

At the moment, blossoms are blooming, leaves are budding and the bulbs are awakening.

The Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote to a friend: "If you have a garden in your library, everything will be complete".

Two thousand years on, it remains the case that the combination of a garden and library provides a quiet space to think and to work, companionably or alone as the fancy takes you (although the only leaves you will find in Gladstone's Library are the leaves of books).

So, if the idea of listening to birdsong and breathing fresh air as you tend a little patch of the Library grounds appeals to you, then please consider spending a few hours a week in the grounds of Gladstone's Library.

If you are green-fingered and like the idea of digging in, there's volunteer coffee morning on April 8 at 10.30am. Pop in and meet us!

You can also email rhian.waller@gladlib.org to find out more.