Wow, that was pretty scary. For the last 24 hours, every attempt to access the forum landed me on some Default Website Page, which may or may not have been the same one Rumil mentions. Finally I thought of googling "barrowdowns forum", clicked on the first thread link that came up, and voilà! My old bookmark still didn't work, I had to set a new one, but now all is well again. Phew! Made me realize what a nasty hole the Downs would leave in my life if they ever went down for good one dark day
... thank Eru and the Valar (read: BWH & Admins) that Dagor Dagorath still seems to be comfortably far off!