Oh No!!
I had finished the next set of 'Strength' prints and just had the titles to put onto the other when I got a call from the landlord of the mill.
'There's water coming through your wall into the next dorr unit' he said.
'I think you should come down'.
I went to the mill and he was already stood with the door ajar and a worried look.
'I think it is worse than just a little leak', he told me as I approached.
As I went in all I could think about was the hours and hours of time carving the blocks and wondering what the damage would be.
Luckily the blocks were not in the vecinity of the burst sprinkler head and had somehow managed to avoid the water running through the roof space from dripping onto them.
It was so cold that the floor had turned the escape water into ice and there was no light or electric.
I went to the wall where the 'Fish' were drying and found some dry, some drenched and some that had soaked up the water, frozen and fallen to the floor in a ripped, smashed heap.
The panthers near the piano.....well lets just say they kept the piano slightly drier and sacrificed themselves (showing true 'Courage') to the incoming tide.
Even some of the eagles didn't fly high enough to avoid the floods.
All in all I think I was lucky as the majority of the prints could be saved. Some now tell the tale of the winter of 2010 and bear the scars thus making them unsalable but none he less, in a strange way I feel kinda attatched to these ones now.
I will enclose the chaos pictures for your perusal and please be assured that what did not kill us will definat
ely make us more determined if nothing else.


The guilty Sprinkler

The frozen Arab Press

The sodden printshop

Presses drying out

Surviving prints drying out.