I've lent books and records/CDs over the years, written them off as 'lost' only to have them suddenly come back, often long after I had forgotten who had borrowed them. Having said that, if anyone out there has my copy of John Martyn's "The Church With One Bell". I'd really like it back please. Sometimes, I find a book or CD that I simply have to share with people, in which case I simply buy them copies. (I think I may have single-handedly pushed The Time Traveller's Wife up the Amazon chart when it was first published!)
I once lent a work colleague a rare 4 CD boxed set. Several months later, I inquired as to its whereabouts only for him to confess that he had left it in the glove compartment of a hire car months earlier. It must have played on his mind, though, because about a year later he presented me with a replacement copy - it must have cost him several hundred pounds to obtain.
In our street, we have a neighbourhood tool shed of things that you might occasionally need but really can't justify buying to use once in a decade. So far as I know, no one has ever failed to return a borrowed item. Every now and again, a plea will pop up on the group email for a specific item - there was a panicked request for a particular spanner on Boxing Day to fix a leaking washing machine, for example - and, again, I've not heard of anyone having any problems. But we are a friendly street
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Not surprisingly, I often get kids (or their dads) knocking on the door needing to borrow bike tools but in those instances I often also end up assisting with their deployment.
