Glad to help. Matching hides. The way this works is they might have 500 hides of Document Harness in a new shipment, and there might be three to eight shade variances within that particular batch. When an order comes in from a dealer (who should mark it "MATCH HIDES ON ALL" on his purchase order), then order entry notes that as such. For the Austin sofa, they may need close to ten to twelve hides, four or five for the chair and two for the ottoman. So if they're pulling sixteen to eighteen hides for your project, they have to go through the stack and get the sixteen/eighteen that match closely, within a shade or two of one another. Those hides are then bundled with your specific order and carted over to the pattern cutters, who will mark and cut the panels, and tag them with your order number The hide selector at H&M pays particular attention to dye lot variances and its important to get them all in one batch. Once he selects them, they are all rolled together and banded to keep them together as a group. At this point, if you have a mixed order of motion and stationary furniture, it may go to different plants. The main plant is stationary furniture and the motion plant is about five miles down the road. This is why you *might* see a difference in a few days ship from one another, but 99% of the time an order written by a dealer ships complete if all done in the same leather, on the same purchase order for the same customer. I declined an order last week for a customer (silly me!) who wanted to order a Miller Recliner immediately, and then an Austin Sofa and a Austin Chair/Ottoman, but wanted to wait a month for the latter pieces. I told him quite honestly that they're not going to match and not to do it. I told him to get them all in one shot whether its from me or another dealer. I've seen too many 'match hide' issues over the years to do it any other way. H&M makes its own frames so there is no backorder issue there, and I can't see how that dealer can claim with utmost certainty that all the hides will match when there is 60-day gap from the chair/ottoman shipping and the sofa. The H&M production system is not designed to operate that way. Document is a tri-tone hide that does have some variance from batch to batch. If its not too bad, don't worry about it, as no telling how long you would have to wait to re-order. Place the furniture in the room and look at the hide match there, rather then side by side in direct sunlight in the driveway. Your home interior will not be as critical in lighting as out in the driveway. I'd guess you have a 50/50 or better chance with Document Harness for a satisfactory match on two pieces made at a different time. Seven months is just wrong. The Austin series is one of the top sellers at H&M, and I've never had to wait past 10 weeks for a complete Austin set, even with an out-of-stock hide its never gone beyond 16 weeks. When I request Quick Ships in Austin, they are made in 6 weeks or less. I think the fact that the dealer refuses to give you the H&M Acknowledgment number is indicative of where the problem lies with your order. I would be more than happy to give out that information to any customer of mine along with the name of the person to call at H&M, but have never had to do that as I watch over all my H&M open orders like a mother hen over her chicks. Hope it all works out for you. Duane Collie

Hi Emma, I'm doing this from home and don't have the leather handles with me, but its quite normal to see significant variances in aniline-dyed leather even within a given batch from a tannery. The higher grade the leather, the more they vary as a rule. Nevada and Canyon are Aniline-dyed, which means they are vat-dipped for color and are not corrected with spray paint (pigmented). Can't recall if Tuscany is aniline or not. Here's the general rules for leather and leather like products: Vinyl: Dead-on color. As it should be with a man-made product. BiCast: Closer to vinyl but consistent in color. Finished: Painted leather with topcoating. Mostly consistent colors, but can vary lightly. Aniline Plus: Vat dipped Aniline, but color-corrected with paint. So-So variance. Pure Aniline: The best! Vat-dyed with high color and significant shade variances. Looking at aniline-dyeed swatches is best done from about 10 feet back, seriously! Also, anilines tend to changes tones when pulled tight,so you see one shade when laying loose as a sample, and the finished product on the sofa will be lighter in most cases as its pulled tight. If color is absolutely critical, then you can request a cutting for approval prior to order production, but this often causes more difficulties than its worth. First off,it slows production about a month on average. Second, if you decline the sample, chances are you may have to wait another three to four months before a new leather batch arrives. Third, the sofa will look different from even the best cutting sample as the leather 'takes' differently in color and shade when upholstered. Hope that helps Duane Collie

I bought my Francis Meilland from a nursery clearance three years ago as a half-dying potted bareroot rose, and it bounced back pretty well. I put it in a pot for one year, and after two years being in the ground, no matter how hard I pruned it back, it grew to 7 feet tall. (I removed about 3 feet from each stem after the first flush.) It's not stingy for me at all, blooming regularly every 5-6 weeks. Maybe it just needs some time to mature. I only fertilized once in March and water my roses every three days in summer. We're not as hot as other states/countries, though. Photo taken 3 days ago.

‘We are planning a vacation to England as soon as any quarantine periods in the UK are lifted.’ I wouldn’t come for a while yet. We are in a complicated tier system and in most places you won’t find much open. Depending on which Tier you visit you may find no shops, no museums, no pubs and no restaurants trading. And even if you have friends here you can’t stay overnight with them or, in many areas, even meet them indoors. Thermal underwear businesses have been a big success story this year as we get used to meeting people outdoors. On Saturday our Christmas was ruined by the announcement that people in Tier 4 (both my kids) could not leave their homes except for vital purposes and the rest of us could not have guests overnight or even in the daytime, other than one household on 25th. This after being assured right up until Saturday afternoon that we could have two households of up to six people for five days starting on 23rd. So we are sitting here with a house groaning with five days worth of food and drink for six adults while the kids are stuck in their London flats having run down their supplies expecting to be away. We should have been abroad 6 times in 2020. As it was we had three nights with DS’s girlfriend‘s parents in Devon. It’s all getting rather tedious.