Interesting times......

Another blogging hiatus... due to events outside my control.

Aren't they all? *sigh*

So....in no particular order.

• STILL working on the office makeover due to other stuff happening
• Dental abscess. Ow, Ow and OWWWW!
• Website woes

The office makeover is ongoing..... the main thing is that it has been re-established as a working space and it's only the whimsical stuff still to do, which can wait.

Following an emergency dental appointment and a course of antibiotics the dental pain has resolved... but it did take a few days out of my already busy schedule.

However the website problem has had us tearing our hair out.  Out of the blue earlier this week I noticed that there were some odd characters in the text across the site which hadn't been there the day before.  Apparently, our hosting service had updated the PHP on their servers, which caused the issue, and although it doesn't affect the functionality of the site, and everything still works, it looks unsightly and odd.

Trying to edit out the characters only made matters worse, because as soon as I tried to edit a listing, the entire text would disappear... permanently.  Cutting and pasting wouldn't work either.  We've spent the past 3 days trying to work out what to do, and the answer seems to be, not much.

Ideally we need to do a full rebuild of the website then install eleventy billion updates, each of which would almost certainly throw up glitches which have to be individually tracked down and fixed.   

An extremely time consuming and frustrating process.

However, our hosting package only runs through till next April, and I wasn't planning to renew it as I'm aiming to start a new venture in the spring.

I've finally managed to work out how to add new listings without them disappearing into the ether, so over this coming weekend I'll be listing the last of the special miniatures from my own collection, as well as my final Christmas-themed kit, to which I'm still putting the finishing touches.

Although the website issue is a real pain in the fundament, I'm taking it as a sign that it's run its course, and my decision to retire it next April is the right one.  It also gives extra impetus to my plans, as there's nothing like a proper, irrevocable, immovable deadline to galvanise me into action.