Busy week

Three lunches with family and friends, a funeral, a wedding, a German conversation group meeting, hours waiting around at the motor trade and a Covid booster jab.  

On Monday I’d to travel to the next county for my Covid booster, which was administered promptly and painlessly.  The following day, as predicted, I’d a sore arm and felt pretty lousy, so it was as well I was kept busy.  Four of us met here to chat in German.  Our practice is for the hosting of the meeting to circulate, and for the host to propose a text to prime the pump.  Coincidentally, my Bern Facebook friend Matthias had posted an article from the Swiss Cystic Fibrosis journal about his participation in a trial of a medication that has transformed his life, so that made for happy reading and a good discussion.  

Straight after that we were off to lunch with Claire and Richard at a nearby hostelry which I won’t be using again in a hurry: we both found the meal a bit testing at the time and more so afterwards.  Great to catch up with old friends, though.  

Lunch out next day at Chris and Jon’s: I took a disused washing up bowl full of plants: Chris is replanning their garden, and I’m rarely short of cuttings and seedlings to exchange with friends.  Super lunch in great company.

On Thursday I spent a couple of hours at the garage, being assailed by Greatest Hits Radio while the grease monkeys tried to find out why the cruise control wasn’t working on the car.  Three test drives later, they found that re-initialising various computers solved the problem.  It also brought into service quite a lot of functions that were not working when we took delivery, eg automatic unlocking as you approach the car, and confirmatory flashes when the car is locked and unlocked.  By the time they’d finished I was starting to get quite stressed and ratty, so I guess my customer card is filed under ‘awkward’.  But the cruise control now works.

Corina’s funeral on Friday was quite sparsely attended, but it has been a few years since her care home closed down - and her customers obviously were no longer in circulation.  We’ve had a few funeral teas lately, and I can say that the Disgustedville Masonic Centre knocks the rest into a cocked hat.

On Saturday we had lunch with Martyn’s sister Sandra on the way to their niece Nina’s wedding.  Churlish to mention it, but as it’s her third, many fingers are crossed.  Her new man Lee seems a happy, sensible sort, so we’re full of optimism.  The reception was generously catered and pleasant - and mercifully free of speechifying - but the room was cramped and noisy, and when the thumping music began, I was very eager to be somewhere - anywhere! - else.  

So today we’ve had a quiet day so far at home.  The jacket I wore to the funeral shed a button on the day, and the one I wore to the wedding was coming close to doing the same, so today I’ve been busy with needle and thread.  The only black thread I could find was in a little étui branded Hotel du Louvre, Paris: my only visit there must have been over thirty years ago.  I could have raided another similar source branded TWA, which was last a brand in 2003, so goodness knows how long I’ve had their needle and thread.  While rummaging I found some Woolworth’s iron-on mending fabric, so have fixed a little tear in one of Margaret’s much-admired quilts.  Good job we don’t throw stuff away, eh?

Photos: our Bramley in blossom, and Annie’s wisteria, and a little azalea, a present from Sandra.

Seemed like a nice idea…

Since the weather is cool but fine today, we thought we’d make a trip to Emmetts, where the primroses and bluebells are beautiful at this time of year.  Had I thought to check the web site, I’d have learned that access from our side of the mountain is blocked by roadworks.  The detour would have taken quite a while, so we opted for a gentle drive home, pausing at Bough Beech to watch a moorhen fishing - and a bunch of old geezers (said he…) sitting on canvas chairs and wielding enormous cameras.  Well, we saw plenty of bluebells by the roadside anyway, plus honesty, lilac, apple and cherry blossom etc, so it wasn’t a wholly wasted journey.  Quite apart from the flowers and blossom, it’s always a joy at this season to see the countless shades of pale green as the trees come out of dormancy.

The little orange car passed the 100 mile mark today, and coped well with the appalling road surfaces that epitomise the legacy of the past fourteen years of - at best - incompetent government.

My new desk arrived on Sunday: fully assembled, thank goodness.  My IKEA skills remain intact, but preferably unused.  Having last used said skills on oak-finish bookshelves, the study thus looks a bit less incoherent than heretofore.  

The packaging was pretty generous, though I feel rather guilty about heaving so much polythene and expanded polystyrene into the bin.  (Given what else has to go in there these days, maybe the plastics are no worse.)  The cardboard, on the other hand has a more honorable future: our new neighbour Lisa is completely restarting the garden across the road with a Japanese theme, so she’s suppressing all the grass, laying cardboard and wood chippings and planting through them.

Chaaarge!!

After much frustration trying and failing to get the car to charge, and three visits from the installers (one of whom put his foot through the garage ceiling), we’re assured that the car will now charge (‘a wire had come off’), and is programmed to be fully charged by 07:00 tomorrow.  You can’t just plug it in and throw a switch: you have to download an ‘app’, register on the same, say who provides your electricity and on which of their list of dozens of tariffs (it didn’t include ours), state inside leg measurement and colour of grandma’s eyes, and goodness knows what else.  Just at the point at which I was running out of blood pressure pills: I’m afraid the installers got somewhat short shrift (though I did offer them tea /coffee which they declined, perhaps fearing I’d lace them with laxatives).  Well, we’ll see in the morning whether the car is fully charged.  Next job is to get the cruise control working.  We use it a lot, largely to keep us down to the speed limits, so would miss it if it didn’t work.

The garden has had a lot of attention today.  We got Ben to weed the bed under the apple tree last time he was here, and I planted it up today with lots of aquilegia seedlings.  Ben was here again today, and lifted a lot of thrift plants from the side of the pond.  They were full of grass and at least one ants’ nest, and are on their way to municipal compost.  He has also moved an acer from where it was too close to the Judas tree.   The garden bin is pretty full now, given also that I cut and edged the grass yesterday.  

The aquilegia seedlings have come long nicely in the nursery bed, so I lifted them with plenty of root ball before planting them out.  Let’s hope they have some of the spectacular flowers of their parents.  I have a lot of trailing fuchsias and lobelias in the greenhouse, ready to replace the cyclamens in the basket at the front door.  Some will populate the pots on the garden steps, replacing primulas and tulips.

Today I’ve had a notification that my new desk is due for delivery on Sunday.  Said notification required me to confirm, which required me to enter both phone numbers twice (even though they’ve got them already), email address (which they’d got by bloody emailing to ask for it), stopping short only of paternal grandmother’s maiden name and date of birth.  Why is everything so complicated these days?  Perhaps, I suppose, because I take longer to learn as I enter my dotage.  

Well, why not?

A flamboyant gesture in one’s declining years.  It’s taking a bit of getting used to: the on-line handbook is practically illegible, looking as if it been three times through a fax machine.  For example, it took me hours to find out how to open the bonnet - no thanks to the manual - and when I finally got in there, apart from the 12v battery, the brake fluid and screenwash reservoirs, there wasn’t a thing I recognised as part of a car.  We haven’t worked out how to make the cruise control work (time for a call to the dealer) and tomorrow’s other job is to try to commission the charger in the garage.  

We went for a ride over the Ashdown Forest this afternoon, so are slowly getting used to how the car drives.  It rides well, even over the atrocious potholes that remind us endlessly of 14 years of Tory government.  Over the 60 miles we’ve put on the clock, we’ve used a quarter of the charge, so that’s pretty satisfactory for our purposes.

End of March

The pension’s in - a few days early because of the Bank Holiday - so that makes for a longish April.  We’ve had a good Easter weekend so far, with a visit last weekend from friends we met on a cruise over four years ago, and next day from Sandra, with whom we’d planned to lunch out.  Martyn not feeling well, we opted to lunch at home instead: I knocked out a pilaff with what there was in the fridge: chouriço, mushrooms, red peppers, onions and garlic, and so far we’ve lived to tell the tale.  with the cruise friends we had home-made sausage rolls, hot cross buns and lemon sponge cakes, so you’ll gather that your obedient servants’ shadows are not exactly shrinking.

Between activities last weekend, I planted a few rows of potatoes in the raised bed at the kitchen door.  Alexandras, chitted from a bag bought at Fortnums, and Charlottes, bought as seed potatoes from an altogether more established seedsman.  Watch this space.  Sandra brought us a fine little azalea, so we’re busily plotting where to plant it.

The rest of the spuds are planted out.  Rather than fanny about with canvas bags and compost, we’ve planted them in the raised bed, and heaved in some blood fish and bone to encourage them.  Which exempts us from the decision what to plant in the raised bed.  I spent an hour in the garden yesterday dragging weeds out of the solid clay of the top bed, and shudder to think how many more hours it will take to clear the rest 

Today we parted company with Egg2, which has served us well for 16 years.  We liked the same model, Egg1, bought a few years earlier, so much that we bought another, so called because they are pointy at the front and round at the back.  Anyway, they both served us well, and Egg2 was altogether more reliable than its elder sibling.  Time has begun to take its toll, however, so we’ve replaced it with an electric car which, right now, is proving rather frustrating.  These days, you need a a moderately ungifted child to guide you through the maddening software and apps that attend modern day motoring.  If I finally master this one, I’ll be happy to hang up my stringback gloves.

The joys of home ownership

The EV charger was installed on Monday - sort of.  The kit came with a missing part, so we have a further visit next week.  We have still not been able to register it, since the necessary app demands the plate number of the car, which we haven’t got yet.  Much frustration, hypertension and bad language on my part as I poked clumsily - and fruitlessly - at my mobile phone.  And it didn’t help that, while routing the cable through the garage loft, the boy put his foot through the ceiling.

Still, it’s an ill wind and all that, save that this one identified a roof leak, so we’re waiting to hear from roof fettlers.  Talking of wind, the fence between us and Annie next door has been flapping round in the breeze of late, thanks to rotten posts in the metal shoes they sit in, fastened to a short brick wall.  Repairs tomorrow, we hope, and une facture plutôt salée to follow.

Having had to do a mighty clear-out in the garage, we’ve shipped a lot of junk to the tip, and demolished the rickety shelving we inherited from the previous administration.  A new set of (we hope) robust shelves is on order, and we’re hoping to install some better means of hanging the various bits and pieces that currently threaten to fall on the car when it’s in the garage.

Today has been mild and sunny - for a welcome change - so we have gardened.  We had a delivery of fuchsias and lobelias this week, so have been populating hanging baskets and potting up the plants left over.  Since the fence repairs are at the back of the nursery bed, we’ve been digging up and planting out rosemary cuttings to replace the devastated box hedge round the front garden.  Some of the little plants are flowering, so we’re hoping to have a pretty hedge ere long.

A useful local resource

Some time ago, the pin that fastens the hands of our ex-Aunty Jessie clock went missing.  The local monthly repair café offers clock repairs, so I gently put a sock in the mechanism and took it along.  All sorts of interesting things going on: a bike fettler (who was also mending a chair when I arrived), someone overhauling and sharpening gardening tools, someone doing textile repairs and a chap doing electrical and mechanical works.  It turned out that this last also loves fiddling with clocks.  When my turn came round, he told me he usually cut down and filed a paper clip to fit, but my clock called for something finer.  So he went and scrounged a couple of pins from the textiles lady, and cut and filed one to fit.  No charge, but a request for donations, gift aided, so that’ll help marginally with my tax bill.

There was also someone there to test electrical stuff before any work was done on it, and it turned out to be the husband of one of my former bench colleagues.  We’d last seen the two of them when we did our last Macmillan coffee morning pre-Covid, so had a nice catch-up.

The EV charger is due to be installed on Monday, so we’ve done a bit of clearing out in the garage.  Two black bags full in the bin, and we have a booking at the tip next week.  Egg2 is full of junk: odd offcuts of timber, a fluorescent light fitting that I’d hung on to for no good reason, and much else.  Years ago I bought a wall-hung bicycle rack, with a view to hanging it on the back wall of the smaller garage.  Never got round to it, and of course the smaller garage is no more.  So the bike rack ought to depart tomorrow, Freecycled to someone who can make use of it.  The bike, meanwhile, reposes in the summerhouse, and it’s moot whether either of us will ever ride it again.  Still, I’ll take it along to the repair café next month and see if the chap can get the gears working, just in case!

Curiosity satisfied - partly

Good old Fortnums do theme weeks for much of the year, and a couple of weeks ago it was the Alpenfest again.  We’re always pleased when it comes round, since it gives us the chance to get some Rösti into stock for days when we feel really decadent.  This time they also did frozen Bretzels, which are very good if you like that sort of thing.  Martyn does not, having tried one in Riquewihr just when he was starting a pretty vicious gut bug.  One the way south we’d had supper at the home of my former secretary, whose baby son had just come home from hospital with said bug.  He is for evermore known to us as Typhoid Mario.  But I digress.

Well, I’m enjoying the Bretzels, at least.  Another of Fortnums’ offerings was Currywurst, which I fancied trying, having failed to persuade Martyn to try the same when we were in Berlin.  It is the street food par excellence, they say, and the curry powder given by GIs to starving Germans in the forties brought them some welcome spice for a starvation diet.  I bought a packet from Fortnums, and used Martyn's absence at lunchtime today to try it out.  Hyper-processed Frankfurter style bangers, sliced and packed in a tomato sauce, and supplied with a sachet of curry powder to sprinkle over, all in a plastic container that went in the microwave.  Tasty in a guilt-inducing kind of way, but not sufficiently so to encourage me to try it again: or not that brand, at least.  I’ll give it another try if I get to Berlin again, but I suspect that may conclude the experiment.

The best laid plans…

I went out after lunch to prune one of our new roses, and eventually came back in, having moved the bamboo canes from the garage to the shed, and put up brackets to carry the step ladder on the opposite side of the garage from its current space, which from Monday, we hope, will be occupied by an EV charger ready for the new car.  The rose remains unpruned.  Mañana - talvez.

The garden is perking up: we have hacked down the cornus, which has provided us with fine winter colours.  The magnolia stellata and camellias are starting to come into flower, and we have lots of colour from crocuses and narcissi.  Tulips are budding well: we planted a lot of new ones last back end, so are looking forward to seeing what we get.

The bank I sacked a couple of months ago wrote to me the other day, full of apology for over-charging me for a foreign currency transaction.  The over-charge came to £0.87, which for regulatory reasons they rounded up to a whole pound, and they enclosed a cheque in said sum.  It would cost more to drive to the village Post Office to pay in the cheque.  I’m not in need of a bookmark, but am greatly in need of exercise, so, as the sun was shining, I legged it down to the village and, with apologies for putting them to the trouble, paid it in.  Sad, eh?  But after all, if you saw a quid coin on the pavement, you’d pick it up, wouldn’t you?  And it got me a scrap of exercise after all, plus a chance to take a look at other people’s gardens.

A propos Post Office, our excellent village PO is closing, having occupied a corner of one of the village’s two grotty One-Stop convenience stores ever since we moved here.  It is to be replaced, they say, with a full Post Office service from the ordinary One-Stop shop counters.  Meanwhile our lovely Post Office clerks are getting the sack.  Modern times.

Spring, ctd

Plenty of signs of spring in the garden: daffodils great and small blooming fit to bust, purple crocuses coming into flower and plenty of snowdrops dancing in the breeze.  The magnolia stellata is coming into flower, and the hitherto sulky red camellia is showing colour for the first time in years.  Our neighbour’s pink camellia is in fine flower, and is now a fair bit taller than the fence, so we get to enjoy it as well.  

As I mentioned last time Sheila, who came for a sandwich before Iain’s funeral, brought the beautiful pot of fritillaries in the picture.  We shall plant them out when they go over and, inshallah, continue to enjoy for years to come.  And Sandra brought the daffodils when she came to lunch last Sunday.  (Together with a rather good Côtes du Rhône Villages!)

Interesting afternoon yesterday: the local British Legion branch had organised a talk by one Mike Martin on the Russia-Ukraine war.  A former army officer, now an academic, he spoke very well and convincingly without notes.  He is also the Lib Dem candidate for our constituency, and would have got our (tactical) votes anyway, but it was good to see him in action.  

This past week we bit the bullet and ordered a new car, and it was reported to be on a ship last Monday.  We shall trade in Egg2, with some sadness, because it has served us well for almost sixteen years, and never let us down.  It has developed one or two little faults of late, and the roadside recovery people tend to decline support to cars over sixteen years old, so the time has come, (the walrus said).

And another funeral

Today’s was that of one Iain Hamilton, who used to organise our German conversation group.  A formidable intellect: he spoke more languages than you can shake a dictionary at: French, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Czech, Danish, Italian, Spanish - and he was evidently studying Swahili and Scots Gaelic when he died, just days short of his 87th birthday.  Another ‘state funeral’, lasting an hour and a quarter or so, attended by I’d guess a good 150 at the surprisingly vast parish church down the road: Iain was a member both of the church choir and of the town’s Orpheus choir, so the congregation’s singing was well augmented.  Anthems, hymns, lengthy tributes, prayers and all the rest, and his best friend and companion Lesley read - in impeccable French - a lovely Jacques Prévert poem about two snails who went to a funeral.  

I suspended my attendance at the conversation group during last year’s health episode, but Iain kept me in the body of the kirk by asking me occasionally to find a text for the group to discuss: I usually found something Swiss, having typecast myself as a helvetophile - and got distinctly snotty when he turned his nose up at my offering!

Fellow German  conversationist Sheila came to us for a sandwich beforehand, since she was concerned about finding a parking place at the church.  I drove there, and luckily found a slot near the door.  She very kindly brought us a pot of fritillaria meleagris in flower, and they will improve our garden for years to come.

Frühlingsrauschen

 

Some welcome signs of life in the garden.  We’re beginning to see signs of the bulbs we planted last back end, and we’ve been busy with last week’s delivery from Parker’s: lilies of the valley, oriental poppies in colours we hadn’t already got.  The order came with a freebie bag of lilies which aren’t yet planted: we haven’t yet decided where to put them: decision criteria are:  close enough to see the colours, and far enough to avoid the strong scent.  I’ve dug out some perennial geraniums to make way for oriental poppies by the front door: said geraniums are good at covering a lot of ground in a hurry, but they are not among my favourites.

Good old Ernie came up trumps this month, yielding nearly enough to pay for my new specs.  I collected the same yesterday, and they seem broadly satisfactory: the distance correction area seems wider than in previous lots.  The reading correction is set a bit low, however, so I’ll need to see if the frame can be adjusted.  Given what they cost, I’m disinclined to put up with anything short of perfection.

IKEA again.

When we moved here (gawd! - almost seventeen years ago) I nabbed the smaller south-facing bedroom as a study, and took down some top-hinged wall units.  I kept them as floor standing storage for the domestic files, adding castors.  (I also bought a bit of melamine laminate to glue to the top, but measured it too small.  Measure twice, cut once!)  The box moved down when we had the garage converted, but was just a little too narrow for the job - a number of lever arch files had to be shoved to the back.  Not a problem when one was 57 and less arthritic.  Significantly more of a problem for one with shite knees and recent abdominal surgery.

I did a bit of on-line research, and found quite a nice shelf unit, deep enough for said files and wide enough to take them all in one rank.  £170.  The egregious Mr Kamprad’s Billy is too shallow fore and aft for the job, but his successors at IKEA do a satisfactory line called Kallax.  £39.  OK: it meant getting on hands and knees and making with Allen keys, but they now provide a plastic Allen key holder that adds useful leverage.  The new box is made of solid shit, but it does the job, fits the space well, and matches Martyn’s rather more substantial desk.  

The amount I’ve spent at IKEA over the years hardly bears thinking about, though a lot was reimbursed under my expat deals.  So I do IKEA in English, French, Schwyzertüütsch, German, and even a bit of Vlaams.  Much of the stuff from various flats stayed behind in Lagrasse to help buyer Alain get started, and will no doubt have found its way to new homes - or the déchèterie.  Anyway, the non-IKEA storage box on castors is on its way to our local déchèterie tomorrow.

Interesting if grim

Today we went to an inquest.  We discouraged the rest of the family from coming, and of course reported back to them afterwards.  There was little in the day’s business that we didn’t know: we had read the evidential bundle, which the coroner had to read in open court for the record.  The consultant pathologist who did the PM gave evidence by audio link (video having failed), answering questions from the coroner and from Martyn.  That process ruled out any question of foul play or self injury, so if we didn’t find out the precise cause of death, at least it was made clear what it wasn’t.  Open verdict.

We were met when we arrived by two volunteers, Janice and Declan, and one or both of them stayed with us for the best part of an hour, briefing us on procedure, and then just making pleasant conversation, until the case was called on.  The premises were remarkably smart for crown estate, and the coroner was businesslike and polite, if somewhat scripted and impersonal.

The proceedings were held in a newly refitted building in the County Town, where I had been many times before.  There had in the past been a restaurant, bar and hotel rooms, but that must all have come to an end during the pandemic.  I recognised some ornamental iron work on a staircase, but precious little else.  I’d done lots of interviews there of people offering to serve as Magistrates, and attended quite a lot of bench meetings, before govt stopped paying for decent accommodation for such work.

Bitterly cold day, so the overcoats got an outing, but it was brilliantly sunny all day.  The low sun made for difficult driving, but we got home safely enough.  A 57 mile round trip, including feedback to the family, so I guess I’m recovering.

Meanwhile, back at Forges-l’Evêque we have been doing household stuff to keep our minds off it.  The twin beds in the guest room are twinned again and various sets of unused bedding, curtains, surplus bedside lamps and the rest are now cluttering up the Hospice shop rather than our wardrobes and airing cupboard.  Sandra, meanwhile, is disposing of the late Michael’s clothing, much either unused or hardly used.  So we each have a couple of lambswool pullovers - and I shall next get on line and order more moth discouragement.

And in the wider world, HMG’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda looks somewhat imperilled: two Tory vice-chairs have resigned because their agenda is not being adopted.  It also emerges that the UK has allowed asylum applications from people fleeing persecution in the supposedly safe country to which HMG wants to send applicants for ‘processing’.  Wot wiv Trump looking like heading for power again, and Putin also heading for re-election by a marginally less transparent process, I again feel grateful to be old and childless.

One year on

It was on Friday 13 January last year that I took my symptoms to see the doctor.  He didn’t give me a diagnosis there and then, but launched the process.  A couple of weeks later a colonoscopy confirmed what I thought.  Unfortunately, it also provoked serious bleeding, then a ride in an ambulance and a few nights in hospital.  Thank goodness Martyn was at home to see me pass out.  The ensuing year has been one hospital visit after another - well over 30 - and another stay of a week or so after surgery in September.

Maybe no surprise that I didn’t feel like making marmalade last year.  Back on course this year: the batch in the photo is now made and in its jars, having set well, and the electrical contraptions are back in the cupboard.  Batch 2 soon followed, so with luck we won’t have to resort to the shop-bought variety, or the half-way house of cans of prepared Seville oranges.

On Thursday evening we went with Sandra to choral evensong at Rochester cathedral.  She and the late Michael had endowed that evening’s music, and the service was pretty well attended.  I’m not interested in the liturgy, but the choir was very good, and the organ, well, very English.  We repaired afterwards to a nearby fish restaurant, where the food was good, the ambiance suitable for conversation and the service prompt, if largely charm-free.  An eyebrow rose slightly on finding an automatic 12.5% service charge on the bill.  In the circumstances I would have tipped a bit less.  But a decent meal in the best company is already worth a lot.

Here’s hoping….

 ….that 2024 will be better than the year just gone.  The Christmas decorations and cards came down today, which is always sad, but it has been lovely to be surrounded by the good wishes of all our friends, and they remain even though the cards are in the recycling box.

We kicked off the year with a lunch party, as heralded in my last blog.  Thoroughly enjoyable day in good company, but I have to admit that the preparations, though pretty simple, were quite tiring.  But it was lovely to socialise, and Christine’s light chocolate gateau was superb.  The chicken casserole was its predictable success: Martyn had bravely boned all the chicken thighs, and the stock we’d made with the bones helped make it that bit more wholesome.  Reliable BBC recipe.

I think I need to give myself a little more time to get my strength back bit by bit.  Annie and I walked the circuit to the village and back yesterday.  We did the one-mile route, and I found the mild gradient on the way back just a bit testing.  

Train services are still up the spout.  Martyn had to go to Tonbridge to collect Annie on Tuesday, and we’d to take her back there this morning.  Evidently there has been a land slip at Robertsbridge - hardly surprising given the rain of recent weeks.  Glad I’m no longer commuting to the smoke!

For the last few days we’ve had a mistle thrush serenading us from a tree at the top of the garden.  He’s a bit secretive, so I had to identify him from his song with the help of the RSPB’s excellent web site.  We’re seeing a bit more of the small birds too: blue tits at the feeders, plus the occasional robin - I saw one having a fight with a dunnock just outside the window a few days ago.  The blackbirds are much in evidence, as are the usual wood pigeons, magpies and crows.

The mild weather has given the garden a boost.  We have a blue hebe in flower, not far from a rather sulky winter jasmine, and the clematis Freckles is flowering well again.  (Must get another for the back fence.)  Bulbs are coming along well, and there are some promising buds on the camellias, one of which has sulked for the past few years.  Hoping for the best.