Polonius was wrong!

I used to swarm over North Bondi when staying with my grandmother during the long summer holidays as I grew up. But I had not been in some of the backstreets for yonks. But I found it by using our family method: 'Turn right at Pluto'.

A nondescript little building so typical of the 1950s manifestation of 'nanny state'. But, oh so different inside. Kirsten had read on a website somewhere that there was a toy library. And what a treasure it will prove to be. For an annual fee of $100 she can borrow 4 items every two weeks.

The possibility of imagination

Watsons Bay library is a branch of the Woollahra Municipal library. Public libraries in NSW are a function of our third tier of government, local or municipal government. The other tiers of government in Australia are the federal goverment (which is based in Canberra), and the state governments, of which there are six.


The Watsons Bay library is very small and only open Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, it has an aspect that is drop dead gorgeous. To take the two photos on either side of this text, all I had to do was turn around. The library has a fenced in grassed area for spreading rugs and parking strollers, and is attached to a small cafe. And today was about 20C in the midst of autumn. Can you see the city back down the harbour, and the Harbour Bridge peeking above the hill on the right? It was very smokey for some reason today.


My 10 month-old grand-daughter has her own library card, which means that my daughter is able to borrow up to 40 books at any given time! Alannah is able to turn pages and lift Spot's flaps. The other morning, when Kirsten went to get her up, she was sitting in her cot turning pages of a book she had retrieved from a table through the bars of the cot. So important to have an imagination that is open to being stretched ...