Big crash

While my email program was compacting folders this morning the computer crashed, so I've lost all my emails - Inbox and Sent items. Frankly, the older ones, going back two years or so, should have been deleted before now, but some attachments I didn't save elsewhere, plus all of the recent communications, have gone. And this not long after writing about how email was a favoured channel of communication. Pshaw! As if I wasn't busy enough in any case.

Ah well, no point crying over spilt milk, although I have to admit I felt devastated at the time. I think the problem has to do with driver conflicts, and my friendly neighbourhood computer expert from Lothian Computers says I should probably get the hard drive wiped and reinstall my programs. So I need to pick a two-day window soon when I have time to back up all my document files and take it up to the shop. Computers sense just when it would be most inconvenient for me to do without them, and they choose that precise moment to fall over.

On the positive side, Catriona Malan and I finalised her book yesterday, and I'll make up the PDF files and get it off to the printer (by email, of course). This afternoon I took delivery of Donald McKinney's book of short stories - Why We Howl At the Moon. It's already listed on Amazon so I had to have it in hand, as it were. I'll send off Donald's copies to Thurso tomorrow.

Then I had a visit from Sally Evans, and we had a great chat about publishing and writing. So the day has ended up a lot better than it started.