Wet socks and disappointment

NEWS AT LAST, but it's bad news I'm sorry to say. On the day when folk like this cheerful bunch on the right might be flinging themselves eagerly around a garlanded maypole, I have far less fancy-free tidings.
The hard drive people have sent me the final "diagnostic report" today following its £200 visit to a "sister company" to be fixed. Alas no data could be salvaged from it, and so that's apparently that. How very very disappointing this is. I am trying hard not to be suspicious about this company who may well have known that it was a dead end job at the beginning (they offer a no data, no fee service), so told me that it had to be sent to a "sister" company for a non returnable £200 to be fixed before they would know if the data was recoverable. I don't know. I would rather think the best of folk, so I am just going to have to swallow it and accept the loss. I am having it sent to my brother who has the right kind of brain and fiddly tools and who might just be able to do what the experts can't, but really I think that indeed is that.
I will be gathering any files lurking in the odd dusty corner of other people's machines, and unsold paintings can be rescanned. As for everything else... I will just begin again happily, and not dwell on what else might have been on that hard drive. Thank you again to everyone for their goodheartedness and words of hope. I've spent the rest of the kind donations on a new robust hard drive to replace the old one so that I can begin archiving my work again; it has a rugged orange off-road rubber protective jacket and an estimated maximum "drop height" of 35 inches!

Hey ho ... in other news... Telling the Bees now have a lovely new website, which I have been busy making this week, and the album is receiving jolly good words from folk all over the place.
We've had dreadful weather lately.. pelting hail storms and thunder and lightning. A visit to town the day before yesterday to get groceries and glass cut for our round window left me with squelching shoes and shivering soaking socks.
The mystery painting is to be completed this very evening and while the potatoes bake in the oven I invite you all to dry your wet socks by our lovely fire...

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 ♥