Loose ends....

Just one week into my retirement and I'm still tidying up loose ends, the loosest of which has been the website.  My hosting package ends in a few weeks time but with impeccable timing, just one day before I was planning to close the 'store' page last week, they ended support for the website builder program I was using, leaving me high and dry with a working website I couldn't access or modify.

Well I say working.... it wasn't working well.  I knew the store was empty, as everything had been sold, but instead of showing items as out of stock, they were still available to buy.  And some people did.  Which led to some confusion on both their and my parts as I only had an email from PayPal saying I'd received a payment. I had no notification of what they'd ordered, or their contact.

Tech support was lamentable and still being unable to remove the store, the only solution I had was to refund the money paid and offer profuse apologies.  Thankfully everyone understood.

I have been trying for the past week to completely deactivate, or remove the website, to no avail.  It was like a cockroach surviving nuclear armageddon.

Finally, in desperation, I spent many hours yesterday deleting ALL of the back end files, one by one.  Checking back each time to see if the website was still there.  I got to almost the end of several thousand individual files before I got a blank screen.

Hallelujah!

So Tower House Dolls..... FINALLY..... is no more.

With the disappearance of the website, my sandra@towerhousedolls.co.uk address is now no longer working, so if you wish to contact me about anything doll-related, I have a shiny new email address….   sandramorrisdolls@gmail.com

The Tower House Dolls Facebook page has been renamed Sandra Morris Dolls and I will continue to write the occasional post here on my blog, as it contains the repository of my working life over the past 15 years, not to mention the many (mis)adventures of Small Dog, so I simply can’t bear to close it too.

As I prepare to set sail into the sunset of retirement I’m already revising my personal projects notebooks which contains years worth of ideas which I’ve never had the time to make.  I also, inevitably have several projects in progress which have been languishing for years which I’m planning to dust off and revisit.  

I have a small, dwindling cache of tiny undressed dolls to last me for a while, so I will likely have the very occasional special little doll or miniature available for sale, and if so, I will post details on my blog  and FB page, as well as sending out a newsletter.

I am also keeping the FB ‘Mignonette Doll Club’ running for the foreseeable future… as somewhere to share ideas and have a good moan when I mess something up.  It’s a private group so if you would like to join you’ll have to request it.

So, although Tower House Dolls is no more, I’m still going to be around.  There’s a very apposite saying “when your hobby becomes your business, it stops being fun”.   Certainly running a business involves lots of responsibilities, many of which I won’t miss.  Yes... accounts/taxes, I’m looking at you!

However I can truthfully say I’ve enjoyed most of it, even packing for fairs till the early hours and setting off at stupid o’clock to then spend hours setting up my stand.  All the many years I organised and taught classes and workshops for miniatures clubs or at my home(s) were a joy and I got to meet so many lovely ladies, many of whom remain friends to this day.

But now I’m looking forward to beginning a whole new chapter in my miniatures journey.

In the immortal words of somebody whose name I can't remember.... what could possibly go wrong?