Fiddle-dee-three: the Delépierre family

 

It rained. So I spent a morning trawling ebay ... and found some delightful photos ...

This one, I had never seen before. But I knew straight away who the 'petits prodiges' were.

Two sisters and a brother by the name of Delépierre. Jules Henri (b Dunkerque), Juliette (b Douai) and Julia Maria (b Bagneres de Bigorre). They were three of the children of violinist and conductor Jules Louis Delépierre (1820-1904) and his musician wife, Julie née Boucherie (1829-1896) and they really were 'prodiges'. In an age when juvenile artists, real or marginally real, were hugely popular, the two girls (brother dropped out quite soon) were acclaimed 'the best thing of its kind we have yet seen' by the picky London press. And they didn't have to lie too much about their ages: They were born, respectively, in 1849 (6 March), 1850 and 1852, so when Jules and Juliette 'pupils of Scholl' appeared at Madame Labadie's Parisian concert in 1858 ('aged 7 and 6') they were only a smidgin understated. And when Julia joined the act 'aged 4' soon after, we can see that she was only a couple of years older than claimed. I think this photo must have been taken 1859, when Jules was still with the act, and Julia had joined. Although he did return occasionally ..

In 1859, the three children 'from France and Belgium' made an appearance at the Lyceum, London at Edmund Falconer's Benefit, and made a great effect. This critic got his facts a little muddled ...

They went on to be seen at the Crystal Palace, at Liverpool's Clayton Hall, at the Princess's Theatre, at Cremorne Gardens and at Glasgow over the next couple of years, with undiminshed success, before returning to Europe. I spot them at Cologne, interpolated into Les Mille et un songes and Lulli ou les petits violons du roi at the Variétés, 

then at Nimes, Metz, Montpelier, Rochefort, Ghent, Lille...  In 1866 they gave a concert at the Salle Pleyel, and appeared at the Variétés, giving a whole new boost to their popularity. In the same year they appeared at London's Oxford Music Hall 'violinists of the Northern Courts' introducing to their programme performance on the 'xilophone'.

Juliette made the transition from prodigy to adult performer and also turned to singing, becoming a dugazon d'opérette ... and then she voyaged to Odessa where she caught the heart of Prince Vladimir Dolgoroukov. The tale goes that, with time, Princesse Lily grew moody and sad, and missed her music ... so she started appearing from time to time ... I spot her at Toulouse ..  

Julia married Amédée Victor Maurice DOUAI (Douay) ...

Jules continued in the music world, but he died 29 January 1894, aged 'about 43', at Galatz, on the Roumanian Danube.

Juliette -- Princesse Lily -- also died before her 50th birthday (27 October 1897) of 'empoisonnement', but Julia, Madame Douai, lived on  until 10 Febuary 1926.

THE BAB BALLADS

 

Yes, of course, all of us, the Gilbert (and Sullivan) devotees at very least, know the Bab Ballads.

Well, that is not quite semantically correct. We know 'of' the Bab Ballads. I had a nice red-covered volume on my shelves for decades ... it doesn't seem to be there now. I guess it emigrated to America with most of my other stuff. Had I read it? Waaaaaaaal. Yes, I had dipped in it to see, for myself, the handful of poems which spawned or influenced the comic operas but ... no, truthfully, I hadn't ventured further. And I'll wager that a lot of folk are in the same case as I!

But this week a not-so-slim paperbacked volume arrived. THE BAB BALLADS, a new selection. Selection? Were there that many that a volume of this size could only hold a selection? The short answer is 'yes'. I don't know how many there, officially, were. I don't think, perhaps, Gilbert did. Anyway there has, apparently, been a scholarly American tome which collects together all those designated as Bab.  Here, Andrew Crowther has selected forty odd. Which is a good idea. 

Enough is enough. It's like a box of chox. A few at a time are delicious. To eat the whole lot, one after another (and they're all caramel creams!) provokes a challenged digestion. In my opinion, they should be tasted, a few at a time, preferably in chronological order. A perfect bedside book, or for the water closet, when one lingers a little while.

Yesterday, a fine spring day, all the four winds in the heavens decided to beat down on Sefton, NZ. Trees came crashing down in series, Mr Peacock's high-up perch came tumbling to the ground and .. of course .. multiple electric lines came unglued from their posts. No electricity, no water, no wifi, no TV (and it was election day, teehee) ... But I am from the pre-TV and wifi era. I have lived, in my time, without electricity and water. I lit some candles, opened the gin, loafed into my LaZBoy and ... picked up Mr Crowther's book of chox. 

And I devoured all forty plus.  

Forty helpings of WSG's comical caramel creams. I must admit, as I neared the end, I was appreciating what I was reading less fully than at the beginning. Which was a shame, because some of the most effective poems come towards the end. But that will teach me to be gourmand.

One can't really 'review' the poems, a century and a half on. They were 'of their time', that time when burlesque humour was all the rage, and when magazines and newspapers published poetic pieces of varying degrees of value (or none) daily, weekly, monthly ...  Enough to say that Gilbert's funny tales proved highly popular in the 1860s and set him up for his well-known career in the theatre.

What one can review, is this edition. And I wholeheartedly recommend it. The wrapping on the chocolate box is perfect. A two-page piece on Gilbert himself, for those who are meeting him for the first time. And a ten-page introduction to the poems, full of fascinating fact, written in clear and comprehensible language with nary a taint of the University essay about it.  Oh! That all introductions were as unpretentious and informative. The footnotes or, rather, backnotes, are not too numerous, and not too wordy, and are definitely needed to explain certain current and geographical terms (even *I* had to look up one!), and the chronological listing (2pp) is an interesting aid.

So, amn't I going to say anything about the poems? No. It's all been said. I'll just say that my favourite was the tale of 'Brave Alum Bey', and the murderous 'Gentle Alice Brown' was particularly good fun, and that 'Etiquette' reminded me of Our Island Home (which folk have doubtless perceived before me!) and that if this is 'satire' ... well, I'd call it Jolly Good Fun rather than Juvenal. 

So to anyone who has skimped -- as I had -- on the BAB BALLADS: this edition, from Renard Press, is, in my opinion, ideal. A perfectly packed box of chox.

Cartesians: Jack? Clarence? Charlie? A chameleon tenor

 

I've been writing the name of Mr Leumane (light tenor) for some forty years. But he has never really impinged on the main story I was telling, so I didn't ever really investigate him. Leumane? Should be fairly easy to winkle out. Wrong.

 

Because, of course, his name wasn't Leumane at all. And his first name wasn't either Clarence or Charles/'Charlie', although he used both at times. And was actually known at some stage as 'Jack'. Which wasn't his true name, either.

 

But I winkled and I winkled and the oyster finally cracked open. And divulged ... not at all what I'd expected.

 

Once upon a time, there was a Northumberland brewer named William Catcheside, who fathered a number of children, amongst whom, 7 December 1815 in Wylam Mills, a son named Robert. Robert went into the grocery trade, latterly specialising in tea dealing. I see him in Denton Chase, Newcastle, in 1841, with two brothers and .. a sister? a wife? I can find no record, but it seems that this Mary was his wife. Of some sort. She seemingly gave birth to a son, in 1844, who was christened Matthew Emmanuel Catcheside, and died in 1846. Father and son can be seen together in 1851 in Newcastle. Robert remarried that same year, and carried on grocering and also fathering little Catchesides ...

But it is Matthew Emmanuel in whom I am interested. He took up his father's profession and after an apprenticeship in London, went to work as a tea dealer. For twenty years, he dealt in tea. And then, in 1881, he became 'Mr Leumane' and went on the stage. I have no idea whence came the monniker, but he had been using it for over a decade ... (PS Allister Hardiman has just pointed out that is it 'Emanuel' spelled backwardsish!)

The Catcheside family grave. No Matthew.

 And where had he been hiding that tenor voice all these years. Amid the groceries?

 

His first job seems to have been (as Jack Leumane) in a supporting role in Solomon's Claude Duval, after which he joined the ranks of D'Oyly Carte's touring company playing the tenor leads through to 1882. Over the following years he played with the Carl Rosa company (Florestein in The Bohemian Girl, Remendado in Carmen, Colomba), in Solomon's Polly (the comic role of Private Mangel), with Emily Soldene in Chilpéric, as Lancelot in Dr D before crossing to America to take the tenor role with William Carleton's company (Nanki Poo, Nanon) and in later 1886 appearing with the so-called American Opera Co. I see him as Tavannes in Les Huguenots, while William Candidus starred as Raoul.

In 1887, he was back in Newcastle briefly, but headed soon to Australia ... and there he was to stay, singing ('the famous tenor from the Carl Rosa company'!), over the next 16 or so years, the gamut of tenor roles in the works of the comic opera and musical comedy repertoire of the time (Princess Ida, The Mikado, Patience, HMS Pinafore, Iolanthe, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers, La Mascotte, Dorothy, Erminie, The Old Guard, Olivette, In Town, A Gaiety Girl, The Serenade et al), 

with the occasional venture into opera with George Musgrove (Ruiz in Il Trovatore, Walther in Tannhäuser, Laertes in Mignon, Remendado in Carmen), and most memorably as Faust in that production of Faust which saw the death of poor 'Federici'.

He also ventured into management, in 1893-4, but with fatal results, and authored a number of libretti (including a 1903 version of The Polish Jew (mus: Ernest Truman)) and songwords. There survives a lyric 'The Lambton Worm' dated 1867 under his 'Leumane' signature, which shows us that he was active in musical fields well before renouncing his day job in tea.

 

Jack/Clarence/Charles withdrew from the theatre around 1904 and retired to Balhannah, South Australia, to concentrate on growing apples. He also, at the age of 62 (21 December 1907) gave up his bachelor life, and took to wife the rather younger Arabella Aldersley Manning. He gave his name as Charles Mather Leumane for the occasion. But ... he gave his father's name correctly, as Catcheside, and thus I was able to track back to Northumberland and find out truth of his origins and early life ..

 

Matthew Emmanuel Catcheside died at the age of 83 in South Australia (23 February 1928). Arabella outlived him by another 20 years ... (d 15 September 1949). There were no children.

Buried under an assumed name, with no birth details ...

 

There! Winkling done. 

You can get a girl with a gun: Louise Henschel

 

I'm supposed to have closed the Cartesian department down for the season, to return to C19th France ... but my co-author has taken a few days holiday, so I thought ... just one more ..

I don't know why I hadn't investigated Miss Henschel before this. I mean, she was a successful young leading lady and I've been digging up momentary chorus singers.

Received knowledge says that she started her career playing Josephine and Mabel with the Carte touring company in 1881. 'A member of a clever family which has long ago won a name in art and literary worlds' quoth the press. Clearly, we are supposed to think of Georg Henschel and family. But neither of these statements are true. 'Miss Henschel' was the daughter of a general and gun merchant, by name Henry Henkel, and his wife, the widowed Theodosia Rapp (née Cole) of Tarrington. She had been christened, in 1861, by the name of  Kathleen Louise Jeanette Henkel, and she was some twenty years of age when she joined the Pinafore and Pirates company.

But she had previously been employed, under her real name, by G W Traverner, for his Olivette tour, and one night the leading lady was taken ill, as leading ladies are wont to do, and little Miss Henkel went on and saved the show and got grand notices ..

She got grand notices for a decade of leading roles in comic and light opera thereafter --- J Parry Cole's operetta troupe, La Vie Parisienne, Falka (all three ladies' roles at various times between 1883 and 1887), Lilies, Indiana, Brother Pelican, The Old Guard, Marjorie, Paul Jones -- often for the fine no1 touring firm of Lingard and van Biene. And then came a man.  A Brummy. He was by name George William Bonehill, he was three years younger than she, and he was in business of guns and exploding things. The first thing he exploded was his wife's fine career. She accepted the role of the Princess in the year's Birmingham pantomime, seemingly without asking hubby. And hubby was mighty wrath. He took one of his guns (history does not tell whether it was loaded), climbed into the dress circle, and when the Emperor of Morocco went to kiss his daughter ... he leaped to his feet ...

Louise's career was done. The couple stayed in Birmingham. I see them there, childless, in 1901. But not in 1911. Louise seems to have died in 1912 (22 October) ... in Edinburgh. I wonder how and why. The family historians say she died in 1918 in Birmingham. 'Louisa Bonehill aged 64' ?  Bonehill remarried ...

Nothing like a dame: Harry Josephs

Came on this little gem on ebay this morning. Chuckle. One for all those who think cross-dressing is something frightfully modern :-)

This is Scottish 'dame comedian' Harry Josephs in the role of Dame Hatley in the burlesque of Black-Eyed Susan, possibly at Lina Edwin's Theater (12 September 1870). Miss Edwin of course played Susan and Stuart Robson was Captain Crosstree.

However, Josephs played this role frequently, in America and originally in Britain, and this may be another production.

[William] Henry Josephs was born in Greenock 11 June 1845, a child of W H Josephs, theatre manager. It was an ill-fated family. His sisters Fanny (France Adeline) Josephs (1843-1890) and Patti (Eliza Stuart Patti) Josephs (1849-1876) both became popular as actresses on both sides of the Atlantic, and both had premature deaths. Harry did not escape the rule. He died of a heart attack in Boston on 5 September 1880, barely 35 years of age.

He began his career as Dick Whittington's cat and Harlequin in pantomime in 1864, played with the Morton Price/Catherine Lucette company, with whom he first played Dame Hatley at Sadler's Wells in 1865, and at the Liverpool Prince of Wales, before crossing to America's Selwyn Theatre where he established himself as a comic actor before taking on the role of Barbara Badger in The Spirit of Seventy-Six. When a Paul Pry burlesque was mounted, he was 'Nancy Rouse' ('one of his quaint pictures of femalke eccentricities'). He rejoined the Price/Lucette troupe at the Park Theatre, and then Lina Edwin's (Lisa in Sonnambula burlesque, Thames Darrell in Little Jack Sheppard) and played with Lisa Weber's burlesque company -- Azucena in Ill Treated Trovatore, Clorinda in Cinderella. When Evangeline became popular, Harry found another congenial dame role in the part of Catherine.

His dame Hatley seems from this photo to have become a little more refined and Danny-La-Rue-ish than the original eccentric comic version of E J Odell.

Historic Hecate: A modern moggie miracle!

 

I've told before the tale of how, profiting from my absence in Australia, wicked 'Sherbertte', possibly with the connivance of her brother 'Sherbert', produced a brood of five kittens under my dining room floor. 

The sinful sexy pair were banished to the re-homer, grandma was speyed forthwith, and the wonderful Karen and Wayne at Kitty Kingdom got the babies innoculated, de-sexed and ... returned to home. Home?

We already had three resident cats. Five more was out of the question.  But 'look at my daughter's eyes' ... and the beautiful big black boy had already become his sole sister's best hairlicker ..

Of course, all five are still here. Eating us out of hundreds of dollars' worth of prime cuts, special biscuits, commercial catfood but providing us with infinite joy. Rag, Tag and Bobtail, the three tabby brothers who are the backing group for solo sister Tibby, gambol across my lawn chasing leaves an the very occasional mouse.. but ..

Nine months ago, we noticed that beautiful big Blackie (real name: Hecate) was very lethargic. He didn't want to play with the other little boys: just lie in front of the fire with little sister. And his belly was enormously distended ..

So we took him to Rangiora Vet Clinic, and the result was appalling. He had contracted Feline Infectious Peritonitis. Incurable and deadly. How? Why he, and not the others?

However, thanks to Kathy and Bryn, his knowledgeable 'carers' at the RVC, to Wendy's tenderest care and my mixture of love and irritation (the disease involves incontinence, usually on my bed) and bank account ... after nine months in isolation (with Tibby to cuddle, chase and clean) today, after trip two thousand to RVC, he was declared 'cured'. 

Hec and his vet

Oh, he'll never be a wholly healthy boy, like his brothers, but I've just been to tell him: 'tomorrow, you can go into the World Outside'.

He just looked at me. 'Tied to a bed in an empty room, like Andromeda tied to the rock'.

I wonder what will happen when we open that door?  My heart will be as light as a lilac-flower ...  I do, do hope he will gambol a little. Tibby, I'm sure, will take care of him.

A memorable day!

PS I think he is NZ's first case of cured FIP.  Historic Hecate!

PROFESSOR HENRY HIGGINS strikes back ...

 

These last years, when I have very largely given up going to the theatre, one showday per annum remains a fixture on my calendar. Dinner and a show with my dear friend Richard Marrett.

 

Today was that day.

 

It wasn't supposed to be. Richard is musical director for the festive season musical at the (professional) Court Theatre, and I had marked that down as our 'date' for 2023. But ...

 

The Christchurch amateur (with the occasional pro) group known these days as Showbiz has never been an attraction for me. Copycat co-productions of recentish musicals I don't need. My last visit to one of their shows was to see Betty Helawell (superb professional) as The Merry Widow in 1967.

 

When I saw they were proposing My Fair Lady, I thought (rightly, as it turns out) oyoy! Someone else in New Zealand is amortising their production costs. Scenery and costumes ..

 

Why on earth would I want to see My Fair Lady again? I saw it in the selfsame Christchurch Theatre Royal in 1962. Paddy Moore and David Oxley. I saw the soso film. And, in 1972, fresh back from Monte Carlo, I took part in a production at the Opera House, Harrogate. I had a memorable time in Harrogate, and posed during the run for my first (and last) nude calendar boy shots ...

 

So. My Fair Lady? Again. Decidedly not enough to drag me from Gerolstein to the remnants of Christchurch. But ...

 

This Showbiz production had a hard time a-borning. On-off-Covidded-on again-recast ... nothing had gone in its favour ... but they persisted. Well, I guess they had these splendid second-hand sets and costumes ...  And they went to it with a will. A fine poster-advertising campaign, and WHAT! a live orchestra of 25?  Conducted, you've guessed it, by Richard Marrett. Who else? 

 

Odd. The Am-Pros can sport a full Broadway orchestra, while the professional theatre gives us three synthesisers and a vacuum cleaner? Something is screwy here. But what a plus! For me, that real, live orchestra is a sign of serious intentions ...

 

Richard, knowing my quirks and tastes, and my preference for seeing a show new to me over an old favourite, didn't even suggest that I come to see My Fair Lady redivivus. But ....

 

Last minute catastrophe. This happens when you have professional players in basically amateur shows. Professor Higgins got a better offer. Fair enough. But where to find another?  Someone was on the ball. Our old(ish) friend Michael Lee Porter -- I've known him since he was a student -- had just finished the long run of Come from Away around Australia ... MLP? Can you learn that huge role in x days?

 

He arrived post haste in Christchurch, and, bless him, he came to visit this ailing dodderer with a bottle of Tanqueray!!!  So, OK. I had to go see his show. Only right and fair. Well, it was half a century since I'd last had contact with it ... should be all right. Semi-fresh. (It wasn't, I remembered great chunks of the word-for-word dialogue and music ... )

 

Anyway, Richard came and fetched me in his electric white stunning-mobile, and we headed for Christchurch. And the Theatre Royal. I played the Theatre Royal in 1967-8 in NZ Opera's Madama Butterfly. It has been much remade since then, extremely prettily but with perhaps less eye for practicality than prettiness. The WC situation is disastrous. There is no clock anywhere (no, we don't all have mobile phones). The lack of a central aisle and the tiny space between the rows is, in spite of excellent usherettes, disastrous. But if you are seated in the middle of row E, and need a (disabled) loo ... 'go to level 2 ', I was told. Consultants? Bah! 

 

Anyway, on to the show itself. Was it well done? Yes, it was. I missed a few remembered (from 1972!) bits of the ur-text ... but from the moment that superb orchestra struck up the familiar overture and you heard that hardly amplified sound, I went YEHHHHH!  

 

Unfortunately, the overture was accompanied by some silly on-stage parading ...  we ARE still able to listen to an overture without looking at extraneous chorus business. By the way, if there were that many lovely flowers for sale round Covent Garden, what chance would Eliza have with her sixpenny bunches of violets?  And everybody so clean and scrubbed and hyperactive.

 

Well, chorus overacting is not limited to the amateur theatre. I fear I was once even guilty of it myself. But this lot, even if they mugged a good bit, sang and danced up a treat. And, like any chorus, waved their mugs 'full of' beer upside down: the streets of the Piazza must have been swimming in alcohol.

 

There were little niggles like this throughout. The four or five coins in Eliza's basket must have been gold sovereigns ... and which way do the horses run at Ascot? Right to left, if I remember (ummm) ... and ...  but who really cares? The production looked delightful and left the piece-as-writ pretty well alone. We got a fairly competent by-the-book re-staging of a slightly-slimmed version, with a lot of familiar and characterful choreography. Thank goodness. Pygmalion does not want a Calixto Bialystock.

 

BUT!

 

Casting director, take a bow/curtsey.

 

These are amateurs?

 

Well, I known MLP isn't. And I know that Emily Burns who played Eliza isn't ... 

 

MLP first. Well, my friend, it's often difficult when you have to write about an old buddy. But its a joyous feeling when you can freely and heart-feltedly say 'Wow!'  This was a stunner of a performance ... You gave a third and even a fourth dimension to a character whose 'growth' has always been neglected in favour of the progressive changes in Eliza. Here, it wasn't just Eliza who changed, we also saw her effect on Higgins. And you sang!  (Well, we know you can do that) ... This was, quite simply, an anthology performance!

Emily Burns I saw some years ago as Wendla in Spring Awakening at NASDA. She is now a worthy professional, a beautiful woman with a fine soprano, and ... well, Elizas since day two have had difficulty with the accent thing, and like most before her, Ms Burns was at her best as the 'posh' Eliza. A little more directorial care might have evened the irregular accent out, but, that done, I would say this young lady could play this role on just about any stage in the world.

So? Is My Fair Lady just a case of Higgins and Eliza?  Definitely not. And Showbiz (how I hate that title!) have cast their production in depth. In real, appreciable depth.

 

John Clarke, who is surely no amateur, was an outstanding Doolittle, Cameron Melville gave the spoony 'On the Street Where you Live' in splendid fashion, and Libby Fraser invested Mrs Pearce with more character and importance than I had thought possible. Warwick Shillito was a dapper Pickering who could actually sing 'You Did It' and Angela Johnson (professional) confirmed her place as the grande dame of Christchurch musical theatre in the role of Mrs Higgins... 

 

OK. Suffice it that this, my third and last My Fair Lady, was a very efficient and enjoyable evening. They even just about got away with the mushy ending Lerner tacked on to Shaw's story, in spite of a poor staging of the last scene. Grin. I remember our 1972 Eliza, a member of Red Ladder, used to hurl the slippers at Higgins as soon as the curtain came down. Shaw's Eliza, of course, married Freddy ...

 

Anyhow, great work, all. Ms Burns, Mr Clarke, that grand, grand orchestra, the ninety nuns who must have huge opticians bills after sewing all those Ascot and ball costumes  ... But it was Higgins's show. MLP, my friend, you gave a new dimension to a character we all thought we knew so well. Which gave a very familiar musical a whole new interest and balance. 

 

My evening out, however, didn't end there. My Marrett evenings out include dinner and a show. And the dinner was pretty spectacular, too. We adjourned to the adjacent Argentinian restaurant, Casa Publica where we dined lavishly on Espetinho, and charred pineapple salsa ... until I had to call for a doggy bag. I wasn't leaving my Chorizo Argentino behind. And everyone knows I don't have a dog.

Home in the Marrettmobile ..  9 o'clock (it was a 4 o'clock show) ... it's like Berlin days. So lit up after a show and a rare evening out. I grab the Gordon's bottle and start to write ..

I'll have to keep my eye on Show Biz from now on. Their next production is Kinky Boots. I don't think it's for me. Just another The Full Monty. And, I fear, no lovely orchestra. Back to the synthesisers and the vacuum cleaner? Pop music. And, I think, another drag show? Yawn. One is fun, but ...  So I'll turn back to the Court Theatre for Christmas. Two Marrett nights in one year? I can never remember the title of the piece they are doing. Something about a man who talks to his father's ghost and ... It's not Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead or Rock a Bye Hamlet ... takes place in Elsinore. I think. I'm told it's Something Rotten. Anyway, I hav'n't seen it ... then in April there is to be the exquisite Fairystories at the Piano ... and Ravil Atlas will hopefully give us something previously unseen .. Christchurch is about to have a good season I feel. 

And guess what? The Piano -- much more comfortable than the Theatre Royal -- is right next to Casa Publica ....!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gerolstein in September ...

20 September. Sort of spring. The fields are not so soggy, and outdoor 'spring cleaning' has begun...

Down the back paddock the boys have been cutting up the remainder of the fallen trees: next winter's supply of firewood ...

Wendy's vegetable garden has been largely expanded to no less than a dozen planters ...

From this

To this

The waterways round here have not been well maintained, so in conjunction with Environment Canterbury we got cleaning ...

And where, you might ask, was I while all this activity was going on?  Why, where the boss always is!

And meanwhile, back in the front garden the tardy and sluggish signs of spring are showing just a tiny bit more. The magnolia has a few scraggy flowers (maybe it is saying 'Feed Me?), the rampant wisteria is sprouting multifold buds, the kowhai trees are in flower ...

Alas, no bellbirds nowadays. The peafowl and the paradise ducks and the pesky plovers have scared them all away ..

The azaleas are getting into full gear ..

The rose bushes are a mass of maroon sprouts ...

These huge sprawling trees -- whatever they are called -- just get bigger and yellower every year

The patio is covered with self-sown pansies of colours I am sure I never planted in the hanging baskets (very weeding intensive!). So why are the hanging baskets not giving forth? 

But my delight is my Charity bluebells (bulbs 10 for $10 and a good cause), planted by ME, mollycoddled and watched over by ME ..until finally the first flower has come forth ... what JOY!

I must swot up the life-cycle of the bluebell. Does the bulb proliferate? May I have a dell of bluebells next year ..

The Boofie Memorial is clad in wisteria

And .. hi Lily! hi Lilies! Hi lo!!

I shall have to ask the Guardian of the Garden what comes next ...

But, first. I need a rest. All that work (by others) is tiring ...  How that? Well, you try opening your wallet umpteen times a day! Absolutely exhausting!