New Years Eve

I hope everyone had a great Christmas with friends and loved ones and that Santa brought you what you asked for.
My wife has critisized me for being a gadget man, new iPhone, iPad and iPod. So for Christmas I bought here the new iRon.

It's been a few days since my last post, and what a stressful few days it has been.
My daughter Amy who some of you will know is teaching out in Nepal, had to be airlifted to hospital in Kathmandu after being taken seriously ill. As you can imagine, it was the not knowing what was going on that was the killer. Your imagination runs wild. I am pleased to say that she is out of hospital now and it was great to speak to her on Christmas Day. Thank god for SKYPE.

Well it's continued to rain and rain over Christmas, there has been no let up where we live. Every where has standing water. Even our chickens have started quacking.
My hands have ballooned up with the damp. Years of abusing my hands doing Iron Fist and Tigers Claw kung fu techniques have left me with phenomenal grip but the side effects are arthritis. Bummer! So on a morning like today the hands that were trained to rip a mans throat out can't do up my flies! Go figure! So no wiring of delicate branches at the moment. I may as well be wearing boxing gloves. Considering we started off the New Year with a hose pipe ban, we have certainly made up for it. I wonder how far into 2013 we will be before they say there is a national water shortage.

I wonder what 2013 has in store us. What ever it is will be a bonus, after all according to the Mayans we should not be here now. Right!
We have the Noelanders Trophy in Belgium coming up in a few weeks in January on 19th-20th and then the Swindon Winter Image show in February. Always a good start to the year. I will attend the Noelanders for a few hours on the first day and then I will be off on my travels picking up new trees.
As I was sat here writing this, the postman just turned up with a parcel from Belgium of promotional posters and flyers. It's a bit late for me to do much promotion now but I will do my best.
So here goes.

The Best of British Bonsai event as most of you know will now be staged at the NEC Birmingham in conjunction with BBC Gardeners World Live. There have been some technicalities to sort out regarding available space, layout, screens etc. But most of that has been ironed out now as Kath and Malcolm Hughes have had a meeting with the RHS down in London.

Of course there will always be the problem of people submitting entries for the exhibition at the last minute. But this year they could come unstuck as there will actually be less trees in the exhibition, and once I have the lineup, that will be it. Entries will close.
But of course you can't put on an exhibition without someone wanting to bye pass the selection process. You know the ones, "I will put trees forward but Tolley's not selecting them". Or "If I put a tree in can you guarantee I will win, only I could ruin my reputation".  But Hey Ho, you know what, they just make me smile when I think how ridiculous that whole thing is.
I have already selected a lot of trees for my short list of trees for the exhibition and certainly as things stand the overall event should be of a higher standard. Also there will be a lot of good deciduous trees which I am pleased about.

Tomorrow is New Years Day and I am looking forward to working on styling a tree tomorrow, starting the new year as I mean to go on.
There have been a lot of downers and a lot of heart ache in 2012 for me, but I am staying positive after all despite everything I am a very lucky guy.
And so as the young fella said' "Keep smiling".

See you all in 2013!