LOL...When I signed onto my computer a few minutes ago that was first headline I saw, Trudi. According to latest positioning we here on the east coast still have time to be naughty!! Cheers to you, Trudi, and thank you for all your hard work on behalf of your winter sowing converts new and old. You've certainly spread enough joy to perk up many, many corners of this earth one little patch at a time. Peace to you!

Hi, mine did basically the same as yours. Maybe this time of year the leaves are covered in fungal spores, what with the wet damp weather. Most of the leaves turned yellow around the large veins, then brown then fallen off. I picked up the litter, and am pleasantly surprised like you, that almost each one has a bud starting to grow, or otherwise looks quite healthy and about to send up leaves. It's possible that this is the best time of year to take cuttings, because you can practically cut the whole bush down without doing it any harm, and go to town!!! Paul Mozarowski.

Mmm, I had my chimney reflashed this year and it was about 200 dollars (that included sealing and fixing a couple bricks) it has a warranty for five years I think. anyways, won't the new chimney have flashing? Then it will fail in about 3-5 years and you will have to get new flashing again also, regardless if it is new or an old chimney. So Eventually I think that it will look ugly, like the older chimney. also you have an old house and old house owners know it isn't as easy as you think (nor as cheap) if you tear down the top of the chimney I bet you will find other things that need to be repaired and the cost and time will increase! If it were me I would go with just the flashing repair. We had tar all over the chimney also so the repair was done with some sort of epoxy or something. It looks black but isn't tar. Anyways, the chimney looks SO much better now. I think they cleaned up the tar a little while they were up there. Because of the degradation of the chimney bricks, which were then tared over, it would be difficult to put the metal flashing on our chimney. Also the bricks are very rough. Our house is over 150 yrs old also. Our chimney is not used anymore though. We use the front chimney and we have a liner in that.

I spotted it this weekend at our local Ace Hardware store that has a really fun kitchen section.