Book hunting, St C's style

So the girls' and I had a big excursion the other day into Town. Glen dropped us off at the Library, the well known hot spot of any city for whats happening when and a few books as well.........we had everything with us - heaps of ID, I had finally persuaded the girls' that the library would be fun, had the life reviving water, apples for when we got lost, and sweets for bribery. We marched up to the door, our thoughts turning to airconditioning and something new only to find we couldn't open the door. It was Monday. Libraries are shut on Mondays, did you know that? I didn't. Quickly threw the sweets at the girls' to to forestall any complaints (when you have kids, remember this tactic - it is a lifesaver) (really) (seriously, forget any highminded ideas about not using a. bribery to get something done b. sweets before fruit and c.sweets in any form) (I swore I wasn't having Barbies in the house - huh. that lasted about 1 year) Anyway, where were we? Ah, yes, stuck in town, in the heat, with a dwindling supply of sweets. Right, time to take action. Map in hand I confidently said to the girls; we could find a second hand book store. We trotted off down the road with me talking constantly about the virtues of finding some good books, air conditioned stores and maybe all the treasures we could find. Found the store, yah, it was open, double yah and threw ourselves in out of the heat. To enter a sauna box. no airconditioning. bugger. well, making the best of it, I brightly said hello to the girl behind the counter and asked where the childrens books were. Right at the back apparently. The hottest part of the shop. As we were about to start the long trek down there, she handed me an industrial sized lantern. What the???? Took it with me thinking the heat had got to the poor thing and started wandering around. Don't you love the smell of old books? They have a mellow, yellow, wise quality to them (crikey, think the heat was getting to me). So there we were stacking up on nancy drew, hardy boys and peanuts comics when the lights failed. They were dim to start with, but let me tell, it was total darkness in there. Hot, sweaty, surrounded by used books in the total pitch black. Hence the lantern. Sweaty hands trying to find the bloody switch on it, two little girls grabbing me, got the lantern working, terrified faces on the girls', moment of panic that i had run out of sweets, drop books and stumble down the long and twisted tunnels of books to front counter, with the girl saying brightly, got the lantern to work ok? We have a lot of power cuts here, back out into the fresh air and sunshine. We havent been out much since then.