Hallelujah!

All in all, it's been a difficult year. I've spent most of it feeling very unwell, so as much as possible I've kept my head below the parapet, which has kept me away from blogging.
But even though I haven't been online very often, my blog has been a warm, furry presence out there, awaiting my eventual return.
So you cannot imagine my dismay when on Thursday, after a long absence, I opened up Blogger only to be told 'You are not the author of a blog yet'.
Thinking I'd done something wrong, I tried again.
Then I switched email account and tried a third time.
I did everything my technically-challenged brain could think of.
No joy.

It may sound a little dramatic, but given the circumstances, it felt like the last straw.
In desperation, I sent an email to the GeekWizard (who retrieved everything off my blue-screen-of-death hard drive), but he has - rather thoughtlessly, I feel - moved to another country and is currently house-hunting and up to his gunnels. I sent a similar email to WonderBrother (who salvaged my blog once before when all was lost), but he - also rather thoughtlessly - has acquired a new, uber-demanding job in yet another country.
Neither was at the other end of my emails at the time.

It was then, after turning off the depressing message that I was 'not the author of a blog yet', I went back to my emails. There was one from my first-born nephew, about a photo he had kindly sent me a few days ago. He was, the email said, studying for his MBA exams next week.
My addled brain lit up. My nephew, I suddenly recalled, works for Google. (In yet a third country.)
I communicated my misery to him in Helsinki, and told him - in fairly round terms - what I thought of his employers.
He answered at once, bless him. He doesn't work for Google (it's one of the other big names out there), but said he'd have a look.

It took most of his precious revision day, and involved him setting up a blog of his own to see how the system worked - and there were odd hours when either he or I were offline, but at bed time - oh Hallelujah! - there it was!
He had managed to retrieve my blog from the jowls of perpetual oblivion and return it to one rather distraught owner.
He is a Genius and a MegaStar!

I think you can see the seeds of greatness in this photo, taken when he was less than a year old. It's one I'm particularly fond of.

 Thank you, dear Nephew!