All of which leaves us in a taradiddle

The week before the end of the financial year is a splendid moment for the council to decide that we could have spent the book fund after all, it having been frozen since the beginning of November. This is the nightmare scenario: if we don't spend it it's an underspend, which affects next year's budget (despite that having been set in stone in December) but we can't actually spend it in the time available to us. Even as a rush job, given that we're down on staff to do the selection, ordering and paying off the invoices, the suppliers are swamped at this time of the year by library authorities dumping last-minute panic buying sprees on them.

"We'll have to do a couple of visits," says Julia.

This is the preferred option of people who won't be having to do three times as much work as usual in a rush to buy in the bin-ends from the supplier's warehouse for to sit around in boxes for months on end while somebody decides where they're going.

Luckily, there aren't enough staff available to keep the doors open without a lot of goodwill over staggered lunch breaks so there's no question whatever of getting a bunch of librarians in a charabanc for a supermarket sweep.