Mahogonay shine

This is the bark of the Tibetan Cherry Tree of which there are several good examples in the Woodland Garden in Pollok Park. The bark really does look like polished mahogany and stands out against all the other winter vegetation.  Two gardeners by chance appeared just at the right moment to tell me about it, and oddly i have never seen them in that part of the park before. I am more aware of these increasing coincidences.
The first Christmas card arrived today, from my childhood best pal (the one I swam with at the Meeting of the Waters), as well as the usual round robin (a excellent example of how it can be done well) was an eclectic list of our joint childhood experiences - a cat, a great aunt, a garden and Winston Churchill's funeral. I remember the last quite well - it was a Saturday morning and a rare thing for anything to be on television, with effort I can recall that for some reason C was there as well, perhaps following a Friday night stay over.