I'm John Batchel. Immediately to my good friend of many decades, Simon Constable.

He is in the south of France.

He's in paradise.

He writes for the Wall Street Journal and Barons and other distinguished publications.

He also reports to me about the prices, commodity prices in Europe, because that is part

of the larger story right now in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean basin,

in the EU, certainly in trade negotiations between all these major continents, the North

American continent trading with the European continent, European and North American trading with

the Asian continent, especially East Asia. We begin, however, with the good

news, climate. Simon, I report to you that it is promising to be a sunny and mild day in the low

80s in New England. My lupin are in glory all across my garden. The lilies are growing apace,

very large. I have some four-foot lilies already,

but the flower hasn't emerged. They're big oriental lilies. They open to heavens. The irises are

in glory, weeks behind yours, but they're here. So are my begonias. Begonias are opening up,

and I planted some new hydrangea that promised to be

eight feet tall and eight feet wide in a few years as some of my other hydrangeurs.

These are known especially as pink red hydrangeas, the color of a pomegranate.

They're called pomegranate hydrangea. So over to you, oh,

paradise liver. How is the, how is how does the garden grow in what I hear to be French rain?

Good day to you, Simon. Good day to you, John. Yes, it's been raining very hard today. A lot of it

just coming down. Gush, gosh, gosh. It's been doing that. I took Juno out for a walk.

It had to be in the rain because that's when she wanted. The walk went there, went back, and that's

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