26. A Year in the Life of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House
Posted
11th April 2025
in 10 year Anniversary, blog, Blogs & News, Gaskell House Blogs
7-11 April 2025
The Easter holidays have arrived and the sun continued to shine – although the phones have stopped working! We were lovely and busy on Wednesday, at one point every table in the Tea Room was full, we ran out of cake and there were families enjoying the new Easter trail (with a chocolate egg as a prize) and crafts, but switch to Thursday and we were absolutely dead! Pre-bookings for the book sale on Sunday are ok but I’m hoping the threat of rain might tempt others to visit in search of new reading material.
Last week I approached a new book-bank that’s opening near to the House about donating some stock from our second-hand book sale – which they gladly accepted and which we are now sorting for them. We need to ensure a steady turnover of books so that we have space for new stock so this seemed like a good thing to do and we’ve got some great quality books (young adults and children’s particularly) that we’ve had for a while and it will be good to pass them on. On a related note I also submitted an application for one of Penguin’s Little Book Stops. As part of Penguin’s 90th birthday celebrations they are offering 90 new book stops where people can swap books free of charge. I think one would work really well at the front of the House for local residents and our neighbours to swap and access books. Fingers crossed!
We had some good news mid-week that we have passed ‘stage 1’ for a funding application that will potentially cover the cost of some building works to mitigate against damp and future leaks, and would cover the cost of moving and resetting the stair carpet which is rubbing thin on the treads. I had a quick look at the application but it will need to wait a few weeks for me to find some time to work on it.
On Thursday afternoon we said thank you and good luck to Lucy, our Weddings and Hires Manager, as she moves on to her next adventure. Lucy has been working at the House for nearly two years and was a volunteer before that. She will be greatly missed but we hope we have sent her off in style with a card, gifts and a night out at Mackie Majors in the City centre (photos below!). Rather aptly her last day in the House is Saturday for a wedding – our second of the year. From now on we’ve 2-3 weddings per month until September.
Earlier in the week made some good progress on the writers residency exhibition and got some copy ideas over to our freelance designer so he can start working up some designs. I also caught up with Libby, another freelancer, on Thursday, who will be helping us deliver some social media for the project. Alongside this I got some really positive feedback from the writers themselves which was much appreciated.
I’m on leave next week, so it was case of getting things organised/prepped for next week so that Katy and Ellie don’t have too much to juggle next week. Although this was mainly me trying to get the phone lines fixed and as I type this on Friday afternoon they still haven’t been sorted.
My final job for Friday was being interviewed by Quality Matters magazine for an article in their Summer issue and trying one last time (and failing) to get an engineer out to fix the phones.
So now I’m going to log off for a much-needed week off work (when no doubt I’ll be visiting other museums!)
Sally Jastrzebski-Lloyd
