Dear Mary Sue, I'm sorry that its taken some time to come back to you but I've been working flat out on a strategy report for an orchestra for which I am a Director. I've still not quite finished it but I need to stand back from it for a while so I thought that I would catch up with my mail. I spoke to Richard about the Oxalis list as he needs to be kicked gently every now and again for his own good. He is a frustrating mix of someone who is extremely knowledgeable and eccentric at the same time. He spends all of his time researching the Geraniaceae (Oxalis is in Geraniaceae in some views of the family) and, basically, all at his own expense. He lives off a pittance that he generated by selling his father's house some years ago. A true English eccentric, take my word for it. However, nothing I have said should make you think that his work is not done with great skill and concentration; it is of very high quality. By all means when you visit look at other examples of his work; I think that I have virtually all of them in my library. We are about 40 miles due north of the centre of London, not far from the M1 motorway - our equivalent of a freeway. By rail, our nearest station is Leighton Buzzard which is 4 miles from here and 40 minutes from Euston mainline station in London. One possibility on the car rental return is to take it to Luton airport, which is quite close to here. It depends on which rental company. Their web site should tell you if they will take a return elsewhere than the starting point. My experience elsewhere is that it can often be fixed beforehand, but not when you arrive. I was hoping to go to the meeting but I'm going to be giving a lecture in Prague to the Saxifrage Society at that time. Funnily enough I have another American coming here next week to do with that. A guy called Dan Heims, who runs the Terra Nova Nursery. Do you know him? He's lending me some slides for the talk. I'm sure we could get down to see Harry if you would like to. I should warn you that both he and his wife are pretty eccentric; they are both getting on and Harry is somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. However, if you can live through that, there shouldn't be a problem. By the way, did I tell you that 27th May is my 65th birthday? We are just looking forward to some very cold weather. The forecast suggests minus fourteen Centrigrade on Wednesday and freezing all day for the next five days of so. A similar worry is that there may be quite a lot of snow. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed its not that bad. I've just come in from one of the houses. Cyrtanthus elatus x falcatus is flowering beautifully in the cold greenhouse and, in the warmer house, so is Bomarea kalbrayeri; two beutiful clusters of flowers hanging from the overhead lighting wiring! Before too long three or four species of Tropaeolum should be coming into bloom; they are climbing up some netting on the shady side of that house. Roll on Spring! Best regards, David Victor