Knowle Library

We have spent the last couple of days with Steve and Mieke's Uncle Evan and Aunty Joanna, who live in Melbourne and cousin Julia who was over from Berlin. We have had lots of fun with them including a very wet walk in the woods trying to spot horses and avoid stinging nettle and a wonderful meal out at The Orange Tree pub where we sat on reindeer rugs and tried to control the 5 boistreous cousins!

Visiting the library has become an important part of our travels and the girls just love being able to go to the library wherever we are and sit and read. In Ann Arbor we were lucky enough to be able to sign up for a library card and get books out and some weeks we would come home with 20+ books.

Today we all had a treat when Mieke took us to her local library in Knowle. The library is in a 16th century Elizabethan townhouse with parts of which date back to 1400. Originally known as Chester house it is right on the High Street of the village. It is fantastic that such a beautiful old building houses a public library and means many people can enjoy it. Walking through it is just amazing to be able to see so clearly how it is constructed with big exposed oak beams some of them in huge curving arcs. In Michigan Bella got out books about the birds and mammals of the area but today from the historic Knowle library in which we can imagine all sorts of exciting adventures having taken place over the centuries we got out a book about castles! Very fitting!

The local Knowle library