O is for Only One Casualty . . . so Far!

Moving all your stuff into storage, then having it moved - in situ - on the back of a lorry up a rutted farm track (without your say so) to a new site, and then getting it out of storage, cross-transferring it through two vehicles and piling it in the garage - over seven years, is bound to lead to casualties, and while there is a pile of matchwood to super-glue (not for the first time) in the kits [half-tracks and armoured cars drawer] cabinet, the only real casualty so far has been Edward Ryan's excellent tome;  Paper Soldiers . . .

. . . which got wet in a squall/thunder storm the day of the move, long after I'd given up for the evening, a small trickle of water got into the garage and while all the books in the box were the same way-up (open ends down), this seemed to soak it all up!

Anyway, three whole rolls of kitchen paper and a couple of months to let it dry-out 'un-forced' and it's almost as good as new, a couple of pages are slightly ribbed and one has a water mark, why only one, I don't know! And it's lucky, 'cos the price of a replacement copy on-line is getting as silly as Opie's Big Book of Britains!

The trick was to place each sheet of paper-towel toward the outside/open-side of the book, so that not too much strain was put on the spine (which didn't get wet), this allowed air to circulate, once the whole book was done the weight of it pressed the pages out gently which - I think - is why so few of the pages ribbed, although I turned it every few days so the weight wasn't unequally pressing on one half the whole time.