My first 'late night' this evening.

At TheOldPlace we used to have to do a couple of hours extra every other week. With the occasional (twice a yearish) late evening on a Friday for a couple of hours. The latter usually being fairly quiet.

Here, the fortnightly lates have gone but about three times a year I'm here late on a Friday evening on the enquiry desk from 5 till 8.45. Quite a stretch - though you seem to be allowed a ten minute break in the middle of that, and by not coming in on a Friday until 1pm (which seems to usual practice though I didn't know that detail and was in at noon), it makes the day bearable.

For an hour or so it was fairly busy, but the rest of the evening was as quiet as you might expect. Only one tricky question that I had to refer on to a subject specialist 'next week' - but it was a fairly obscure bit of database jiggerypokery comparing company financial data.

Only took me 90 minutes to get home afterwards which wasn't as bad as it might have been - and I had a good paperback novel to pass the time. (Well, good in the sense of page turning rather than good in the sense of literature. David Hewson's _Solstice_. Given to me by the astronomer's widow with the other books she was donating.)