History Week 2008 is history

For a local studies librarian, History Week is a big week. A lot of preparation, organisation and work goes into this week. Although it is only Wednesday, the hard work is over for me. The theme this year is 'At the water's edge' which is a great theme for us as Wagga was built on the Murrumbidgee River. On Monday I conducted a walking tour of Wagga bridges. Not all of them, we were actually walking, but five bridges we could walk to in 90 minutes. The weather was glorious, the walkers were interested and interesting and the tea and scones at the end were most delicious. This is the group standing at one end of the Beckwith Street bridge, which is the prettiest of the bridges on the tour and which I have carefully not captured in the photo.


Last night we held the second event which we called 'Crowing at the water's edge'. The magic is lost when you have to explain it but Wagga Wagga means place of many crows. Anyway, we had five speakers talking about the history of Wagga and the river - steamships, floods, Wagga Beach, Dixieland (a jazz dance floor built on pontoons on the river in the 1920s), the Gumi festival and the 5 o'clock wave. I encouraged people to start adding to the Wagga Local History wiki I set up. This is the main street in 1925. It is hard to imagine this happening now after years of drought.

Toby has hair like Harry Potter. Not jet black, but constantly messy! I made him a hair appointment this afternoon and we played in the park while we waited until 4.30. I love this park, it is right across the road from the library. It was under water once too.