The blog disappeared!!!!!!!!!

It did. It completely disappeared. I went to update it yesterday and all I got was a weird error message. I tried again. Still the weird error message. So I tried in IE in case it was a Firefox issue. Nope. Still the same error message. And strangely, the kitchen, garden and hippo blogs were all still there.  Freyja tried down in London on her Mac, in case Meanderings had taken against Sheffield, or Windows. But no.  Meanderings = gone ;-(

And it's surprisingly difficult to report this. There is a Help forum (where the issue was being discussed, so it wasn't just me). But no real indication whether Google was listening or planning to do anything about it. And it crossed my mind that, although I back up the blog every January so I have the previous year both saved to a hard disc and even printed out - I didn't have 2011, which has been quite an eventful year in its way, backed up at all.  Freyja drew my attention to the Google cache. I found the cached version of my blog (hello Meanderings - so good to see you, even if you aren't a live site) and now have a very crude back up Just In Case.  Perhaps I should do this more frequently than annually!!

Anyway. It is, as you see, back now. But it was strangely disconcerting to find it missing. I was surprised by how troubling it was!!

Right. Back to normal.  I have been talking to Stella (as I do :-D )  She reports that they have no less than three scrubbing brushes at their place.  Two in the bathroom (why two?) and one in the laundry although she doesn't think the one in the laundry ever gets used.  Lindsey says that she also has one in her bathroom.  Now I come to think about it, I suppose we also have two in the bathroom, one real one and one for scrubbing grout. Although I am not sure where that is. Must have a look. And there is a brush in the kitchen, although I wouldn't call it a scrubbing brush. I use it for dealing with recalcitrant dishes and saucepans, so I guess it is a brush that scrubs. I have been being old fashioned in other ways as well. I made some more butter at the weekend, following on from the butter making event at Bishops' House. It is astonishingly easy if you have an electric whisk. I have invested in some wooden butter paddles which I found on Amazon. And I might need to lay in a mighty supply of muslin, although I usually do have muslin kicking around. I use it for all sorts of things. The Builder had homemade butter and homemade marmalade on his toast for Breakfast on Sunday. Pity it wasn't also homemade bread, but I hadn't had the time. I do, however, have buttermilk in the fridge. I should make some soda bread!

Freyja came back to Sheffield for the weekend, to captain the B team in a roller derby bout against Nottingham, which Freyja's team comprehensively won. The Builder, Taffa, Gaz, Cally and I went to watch. I had forgotten the minutiae of the rules. Must look them up again! She has now headed back to East London for the start of their teaching term.  Our new students have rolled in for Freshers' Week this week. UEL has started a week earlier than most Universities to accommodate the Olympics next summer.

In the meantime, Tony and I both have Quite Interesting coughs, Austin is being blown to Kansas by typhoon Roke and Cally has decided that her new cot is fun for playing in but not for sleeping in, thus rendering her parents horribly sleep deprived. I don't think anything else of interest is happening :-P