The 100-mile pencil

The live shows of the past two nights were both rearranged from their original dates so we've had an unplanned busy spell culminating in one of my mystery dining assignments today. It was at Farnborough Airport so, after walking the dogs and taking my bike to the cycle shop, we set off.

Unfortunately, when we got there the security guard wouldn't let us in due to it being a private airport. Odd, given the assignment had been assigned but, hey ho. So we headed down the road to Fleet and found a pub to have lunch in as I was by now STARVING. It wasn't bad.

Then, thinking how nice it would be to have a free day tomorrow, we thought we'd get the other chore of the weekend out of the way and do a round trip home via the university library where three books were waiting for me to collect them.

We parked and I went to the library. The two guys behind the desk got the books out and then it transpired that they couldn't access the online system for inter-library loans so I couldn't have the books until Monday. This was no good to me as I can't get there on Monday - plus it's a 45 minute drive anyway.

However, it was clear that the weekend staff out of term-time don't have the access to deal with this sort of thing so I had to admit defeat. One of the guys said that if he was to let me take the books and then I returned them late (as if!) he'd lose his job. I could see his point, particularly as he said he'd just applied for a full-time position there. As I turned to leave the other guy asked if a library pencil would 'soften the blow'. I said it might, accepted it, and couldn't help but laugh :D