Hello, thanks und Danke for the welcomes :)! Yes, Jarpe, i want to :). Ken Adrian: The problem is that i can't climb the tree... It's grove is open to the public, but on private ground, the mother tree is about 80- 100 years old and as i say, all the live is on the top few meters, 20 m off the ground. The only chance of getting scions is to cut off the tree, or to patiently wait if squirrels, storm or snow rip some twigs of... Unfortunately in none of the years since 2010 similar strong shoots had fallen down, only some of the weeping, older side twigs, and they are really tricky to graft, only 3 to 4 mm thick and absolutely soft and pliant. In 2012 two out of three graftings had done it, one of these is still alive, the other one was trampled down by cats or playing martens... 2013' grafts brought no success (4 trials), and the first ones in this winter was the four i have grafted recently (we got only two or three stronger storms this winter, none was able to break some scions, and nearly no snow, one day and a half all in all here in our region)... Three of the freshly done graftings are with really big white quantities and one is with very less white, but the buds are vigorous, and if this one makes it, i hope it develops more white in the future. The next similar variety to my find would be P. abies "Pendula Variegata", i think, which i has seen the first time here in this outstanding forum :). I will keep you informed, Andreas

That's really interesting Kath! I'd want to take the longer tour too. The beach makes me sad-I've seen it in so many movies. Danielle

Mtnwomanbc, it was the hotel St. Louis-Marais. The staircase in their picture looks wide, but it's actually very narrow and kinda slanted. The carpet on it was filthy. We weren't too far from the river and Notre Dame. Danielle, that was the girl's room. Three of us stayed in there. The boys had their own room on the main floor. The only rooms in Europe that accomadate 4 people are the youth hostels. They occationally had triple rooms, like this one so to make it cheaper, Judy, my co-worker shared with me and Lauren. I don't ever plan on going back. The whole area where we stayed smelled like urine. It was gross.

Beautiful pics,Kath! I sure would love to have sat down to that breakfast. Maybe after a couple of cups of that coffee, I could have made it up those steps! haha Hey Lisa_in_Germany! Haven't seen you around the KT in several years! I remember Flamingo trying to contact you several times, when she was trying to get Nectarine back to the States! Speaking of Neccie...we haven't heard about her in a long time!!!