More bizarrely, my Easter cactus has just formed buds outside. It flowered indoors at Easter in a proper manner. I have had it 20 years and it has never done anything like this before. I always stick it outside for the summer so that I don't have to remember to look after it.

And some years latter, JJ Cale said "Magnolia you sweet thing, you're driving me mad".

Al — This is a bit different though. I'm baffled. The scientists are baffled. My lawyer is baffled.

Mary — The Limerick air has consisted mostly of water for the last month.

Andrew — The magnolia blossom is usually like a short and beautiful romance. To be savoured in the anticipation and the remembrance.

Gilly — That's dreadful. I had the same thing with sunflowers, but the problem turned out to be slugs.

Bollix — I agree. Too much water means not enough room for liquor.

There is a story in last year's Telegraph (17/08/2007) of a Magnolia flowering three times!

A magnolia has flowered for the third time in a year, possibly due to climate change and the unpredictable weather. John Anderson, 47, head gardener at Exbury Gardens in Hampshire, said the pink New Zealand-bred Apollo hybrid normally only blossomed once a year, in spring. A gardener for 25 years, he added: "I'm not a scientist so I can't comment about global warming but I have seen for myself how the seasons are changing, and the past year has been a particularly unusual one. We had a wet but mild autumn and winter, a hot spring and now a wet summer. It's not surprising nature is confused." "Ten years ago it would have flowered once a year, then it became twice, and now there is the very real possibility that it will become four.