I went round the garden this morning to cut some daffodils for the house and had a camellia inspection in passing. Francis Hanger has three flowers! So I thought it could lose one. This is the youngest of our camellias, about four years old. It has not had a lot of flowers yet. Whereas Donation (sweetie pink) and Lady McKinnon (dark red formal double) are old, gnarled, enormous and weighted down with flower buds. It is likely by next week they will be out.  As is China Clay. It has flowers which are sometimes 6 inches across. It is going to be a little later this year. 

Lady McKinnon was planted so that it would hide the compost heaps from view. It has taken a long time but it is there!! Any arguments between her and the compost heaps will results in the compost heaps losing!!!

When I had woven the fourth row for the enamels test piece, it was obvious that I was not going to get in a fifth row but I decided that artistically it needed a fifth row, so I searched in the cellar and found a block of wood 3 inches square in cross-section and 17 inches long. The surface was  a bit rough but I wrapped it in two layers of brown paper and inserted it in front of  the breast beam as shown. It is a bit of a palaver getting it in and squared up with just one person. The tension in the cloth is holding the block in place. But I have successfully woven some of the next and final section. The piece starts with the black strip of weaving which is just on the block and will be finished with a similar black strip.