Northspruce. No they weren't. I wish they had been. The more of the ladies the better. I never did find them lurking on any of the plants, just on the outside of the house, and I didn't have them last year. I've ordered a Rodale's book called The Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Pest and Disease Control, and it apparently has pictures of insects, so if I'm lucky I'll be able to identify it just for curiosity sake now. Oh, BTW, was it you that suggested the book Caring for Perennials - What to Do and When to Do It? I have it on order =:) If I keep this up we're going to need another room in the house.

Beetles. Perhaps one of the May Beetle / June Bug group of scarabs. ("bug" in this case is actually a beetle, like in "ladybug") http://bugguide.net/node/view/41314/bgimage?from=0 (note there are 71 pages of these at the above link) (but your light-colored beetle looks like those on page 1) If your two beetles are very similar in size, they may be of the same species, color can vary between sexes, and the antennae on these beetles usually varies by sex, can't tell about this in your pictures. A better picture of the dark one would help.

What is the scale? If it's about 3/8 inch do you have Vine Weevils in the US? If not some other weevil perhaps.

Thanks! I'll have a look online if I could find a photo of an instar plant bug nymph. Earlier, I did already find an image showing the nymph stages of the 'kissing bug', and my bug (at least to me) looks a lot like the 2nd nymphal instar: http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/Health-officials-Deadly-kissing-bug-reported-in-Georgia-353134901.html But considering these should not normally exist in the UK (according to a quick google search, at least) I doubt it's the kissing bug! But still, there's a lot of similarities -- dark brown colour, tear-drop shaped body, fairly short antennae and dark orange legs. I think the biggest difference is, however, that kissing bugs don't have that anteanna-like snout that my bug has.