Free library

'Free library': the statement etched proudly over the doorway to our local library.  This lovely building was funded by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, one of 2,509 Carnegie libraries built between 1883 and 1929 in different parts of the world.

It is still free at the point of use, as the saying goes. But it has been staffed entirely by volunteers since 2014, when government cuts in local authority funding forced our council to remove paid staff from half of the local library branches.  Volunteers in the affected neighbourhoods have kept all the branches open so far,  even though most have hated replacing paid staff and have done so with gritted teeth. The council still pays running costs, for now. But for how much longer, now that non-existent 'fat' is to be trimmed from already-skeletal public services?  As I saw someone comment online, the problem is not that we can't afford to pay for the poor (or indeed the rest of the ordinary population).  The problem is that we can't afford to keep paying for the obscenely rich.

In lieu of an even longer rant, a subdued image of the library frontage in the rain, with a less gloomy depiction in the extra. I probably need to get back in the garden, taking photos of flowers :-)