Decay

Not a brilliant day today - a minor problem with mylaptop at work decayed into major issues. The laptop wouldn't boot (which I was half expecting after getting BSoD when shutting down last night). OK - Lets get the data off that I've been working on - several tens of GByte.... Too big to be storing on network drives and acessing remotely. First mistake.
The standard is to have encrypted drives so booting in Linux and mounting the HD does no good - all the data is random bits. So is taking the HD out and plugging into another laptop.

Handing to IT usually resorts in the quick way of fixing disk problems - a straight re-image. Quick for IT that is. Anyway I had no option but to resort to the IT blacksmiths to hammer out a solution. I asked that they recover my data before doing anything else. That will take 48 hours minimum, besides, - Can't find the encryption key.

NO! no! NO! I mentally shout...

I did a full backup to my own drive 8 weeks ago - so only have 8 weeks work to recover. I have never lost more than a day or twos work in the past. Guess it was my turn. Think I'll have to do incremental backups daily from now on.

So, the next few days will be headscratching going through emails etc to help remember what on earth I did and where I got to. Much was prep work and data cleanse on various systems and much was ready to be applied. Hey Ho!

Anyway - about the pic!

This is a run-down barn at the top of a hill. I pass it daily and kept thinking I must take a walk up there. Today, I left early (not a great I can do ....) so I stopped, grabbed a camera and took a stroll not knowing what to expect. Much is overgrown with, as you can see, trees pushing up through the broken roof. Part is collapsed in one corner.

It is actually only about 20m from the M6 between Rugby and Coventry but all but invisible from the motorway. Its also about 7 or 8 miles from the nearest junction. I'm sure many of you will have passed it and never seen it.

I think I'll be back.