Can't copy '.svn/text-base/...

I've been running a subversion repository for a few months now.
Earlier today I tried to change the properties on a directory, I think,
and was told that my local copy wasn't up-to-date. Fair enough, I ran
'svn update'. Everything worked fine, but now updating consistently
gives the message:

hephaistos:/share/online/norman$ svn update
svn: Can't copy '.svn/text-base/foaf.var.svn-base' to '.svn/tmp/text-base/foaf.var.svn-base.8.tmp': No such file or directory

Can anyone tell me what that means and how to get rid of it? There was
a file called foaf.var ages ago, but I've deleted it (and svn removed
it, I thought).

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com> | Anyone can do any amount of work
http://nwalsh.com/            | provided it isn't the work he is
                              | supposed to be doing at the
                              | moment.--Robert Benchley