Thank yous and News

WELL HELLO, and here's news for you... it has been a week of to-ings and fro-ings and frustrations and phonings. After much deliberation, I settled on a particular data recovery company that seemed to know what they were talking about and had a commitment to not over charging... so I packaged up my dreadful hard drive and sent it off into the wilderness (well Pall Mall in London actually!), content in the knowledge that the cost would not exceed £250 and that the chance of getting my work back was fairly good. I have now heard back, however, that it has to be sent off to another place for specific specialist rebuilding before the data can be removed and that this will cost a further £200 and that the chance of recovering lost work is now down to 60% or 70%.
I'll not bore you further with the ins and outs of data recovery negotiations, suffice to say that they have you over a barrel somewhat when you are desperate to get your work back again.

Well that's the depressing and fairly boring bit over.

Here's the happy bit:

I am just unbelievably smiling at the response to my dilemma that I received from you lovely people. Thank you so very much all of you .. not only for all the pounds and pennies so kindly given, but also for your words of encouragement. I turned off the donation button yesterday as I had received a goodly amount .. just enough to cover the costs. I was pretty speechless that people who, on the whole, I have never met, could worry in solidarity with me for my lost work and give money to help. Actually I found this so touching that it made me want to cry more than did the fact of my lost work. And this, I think, might just be the point of this whole fiasco! It has highlighted how very kind people are and how it is possible to build friends and communities of creative people who can help each other achieve their goals. How's this for an idea: that any of you who have a big project or problem or a dream or a plan that may be stuck a little with lack of funds.... ask for help here in this strange land of blog. I know that I would be happy to give what I could to another plea for something worthwhile given out by someone whose work and thoughts I respect.

In the meantime of waiting for news of lost work, I have been able to focus on my painting, which I have to report is coming along very well, and it is not like me to be quite so pleased with an unfinished painting. It will remain a secret... until those of you who helped me have received their prints, but for now, these mysterious-person-snippets are fragments of a hint, and she says to you all with a smile

♥ T H A N K Y O U ♥