Thanks Folks, it's great to get feedback.
Jonny, It came from south west Ireland.
Jerry, Yes, grit the whole time and it's back into grit again. Next time round I'll add a small amout of akadama.
Heymikey, nice one. I haven't even had time to try a virtual yet. I'm saving anything to do with this tree for my club's website. I'll save a copy of your virtual.
Barry, Did you just recall that article from memory! Boy I thought I looked though old mags a lot. Guess you're worse than me ;-) I looked it up. Example two the final pic on page 54 was the better of the two. Thanks for pointing it out.
David, I plan to take it slow with this one. I'm going to spend a lot of time looking at it. Probably all I'll do next year is thin it out to encourage back budding on the branches I plan to keep. I'll be sure to share each step with you lot :-)
Regards
Ian
http://www.nibonsaisociety.co.uk