Yeah this something I need to get to.

Apologies. I meant branch. I nuked the branch. But set me back a lot of time as I thought it may be few things here and there.

I always set gc.auto=0 for this reason, because it means the reflog will be there if I need it (unless I accidentally delete .git)

I see! That is annoying. A good reminder to push or fork the branch for backup.