A Twitter thread that begins with events back in January. Thanks to @liamsims for encouraging me to begin recounting this ...

Tale of a Watercolour

1. From time to time I browse the catalogues of an auction house in London @LondonAuctions @criterionn1

2. Sometimes I make a modest absentee bid and - although I’ve never been there when the hammer goes down - it’s a little bit thrilling when a rather official email arrives to say the bid has been successful.

3. Back in late Jan 2020, Lot 724 was described as ‘A 20th century watercolour depicting a river scene, signed and dated 1976, 25 x 35cm’. No information about the artist was given. As a true information scientist, I had to find some.

4. It wasn’t too difficult to find out about the artist Theresa Nicholas. This blog post contains an excerpt from a talk she gave at The Durrell School of Corfu

https://corfublues.blogspot.com/2018/12/theresa-nicholas-rip.html?m=1

5. I immediately warmed to Theresa Nicholas’s history, a woman living an interesting and independent life in 1960s pre tourist Corfu. Writing, painting and drawing

http://www.yiannisbooks.com/sketches.html 

6. I’ve never been to Corfu, but the style of painting and the story very much appealed and I submitted slightly low and optimistic absentee bid.

7. The joy of success came with the prospect of a little trip to London to collect my ‘won lot’.

8. But storms Ciara and Dennis arrived blowing down the garden fence and delaying plans for my day-off excursion

9. Eventually the perfect Friday arrived. The No. 73 Bus from Kings Cross stops right outside the auction hse in Essex Rd, charmingly, the bus stop is named Packington which is also the name of the Leicestershire village where my mother in law lives.
But not in this residence

10. As I waited for staff to find my lot, I browsed the saleroom, seeing a couple of things I recognised that were about to get their second opportunity to be purchased.

https://www.criterionauctioneers.com/ 

11. But then it all went a bit pear shaped .... 3 lovely staff looked for the watercolour and couldn’t find it ...

12. Somehow I was less worried by this than I might have expected ...
Lunch, Islington ... a little French place ... popped into a church St Mary’s .... then home by train ...

13. I returned to apologetic flurry of emails and phone calls from the auctioneers ... the watercolour had accidentally gone to their warehouse in .... Bath

14. Half Term arrived in mid Feb. A planned trip to London included lunch in Chinatown. Things were changing I’d already read @jayrayner1 on how empty Chinese restaurants were and our regular haunt was appreciably less busy.

15. One part of our visit was to attend a Latin Mass + evening reception at St James Spanish Place. I didn’t want go along clutching a large square parcel, so I didn’t phone to ask if ‘my’ watercolour had returned from its trip to Somerset.
https://m.facebook.com/spanishplace 
@thomaspink1

16. ... a week or so after this I was at my desk @theUL ... the smart phone trilled with the much anticipated news that my watercolour had made it back Islington was received ... hurrah

17. ... but by then it was March ... horizons had begun to narrow, the prospect of lockdown loomed large. There was an awkward Friday when I wanted to go to London but ventured no further than Ely ...

18. So here we are now in May ... the auction house has just re-opened in a limited way. They are in touch but not yet able to organise shipping .... so, for now, this is a lockdown tale to be continued ...
@Wilus1969