Day 11: Richmond Library - I like that it's isolated #30days30libraries

Having raced across London, ducking past festival-going crowds, Saturday shoppers and lots of people laid down with plastic bags of picnics, my journey to Richmond Library had been a little fraught.I rushed through the open doors of the library, feeling waves of relief that I'd made it there before it'd closed.I was in.I knew what I had to do.I had to get started and begin talking to people. I needed to listen.I wanted to take some photos, and get a feel for the place.I'd left my husband waiting outside for me, sitting on a patch of grass, and had promised him that I wouldn't be 'too long.'But I just couldn't do it.As though in a trance, I took a book from the shelf - Malorie Blackman's 'Boys Don't Cry' - I can't believe that I haven't read it before now - and sank down into one of the sofas.I began to read.The library had cast a spell over me.I could almost hear its voice ...You will take a book.You will find a seat.You will read. There was a young man sitting opposite me - also sunk, into book, and sofa. Lost in another world.His name was Aaron."I *should* be coming here to work," he said with a wry smile. "I'm on an Access course at Richmond College doing Literature, Law and History and I come here often to work. But also to take breaks too."He smiled again and proffered his book.A Terry Pratchett title."I love Terry Pratchett. I read him all the time.I didn't used to come here but now I can't stop.It's quiet.And I like that it's isolated from everything else."Like me, Aaron hadn't been able to stop himself from entering into the world of a book, shuttering down the noise of the outside.And like me, he was in exactly the right place to do it.