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I think the 'Very good, very enthusiastic...' works if the second part is an adjective but would have made more sense to me initially if it ended in -ing.

I have finished, quite satisfying but very hard work for me. Not my area of knowledge at all, and I thought the 'Dock weed....' clue had a definite thematic extra word, which delayed the whole thing.
I still don't know what 'Very good, very enthusiastic....' clue is about, only one word fits but it doesn't relate to the clue at all to me!

Lumen - look up the 5th meaning of the answer in Chambers

I got around to this yesterday. Very neatly done and with some challenging clues. The additional difficulty of the carte blanche approach, which I confess I initially reacted to with irritation, is fully justified by the “pictorial” result of the endgame and the production - and positioning - of the quotation. Thank you, Filbert.

Well, Whistler and mother have made good progress, thanks to Drxx nudge on the top line. I confess I used the symmetry to construct most of the grid from the order of the down clues. So still puzzling over the extra letters for some of the across clues despite being able to see what the answer must be. A problem for later.
For now, I wondered if I might have a nudge for 12th clue across. I've tried several lines of attack but they lead to nothing sensible.

Also 12th clue down. Maybe I am wrong to think the last 3 words are the definition. And whilst I have an answer that might fit, there's too much word play for my liking. I expect there's an extra word but I'm damned if I can work out which I should be ignoring. Any small nudge would help.

Re the 12th across, 'uncovered' removes letters leaving just two and lorries (reversed) is a common abbreviation (with an extra letter.

12th down 'brick' is a term of admiration/endearment to the English rather than building material and 'glass in the middle' is a similar but opposite to 'uncovered'.

Ah, thank you Granama1, we had tried that for the across clue but discounted it because we only knew a different meaning for that word. Alas, therefore, we were 'sighing in the wind' :)

Enjoyed this and have finished, couple of loose ends for me, both of which have been raised by others but I still can't see after the hints.

6th down, i can see how the wordplay would work without the fourth letter of the answer, but not with it
Second pair... - can see the def (point) but no idea how the wordplay works

The second pair of letters in "a set" nets, ie surrounds, the first pair of letters.
In the 6th down, it's a hyphenated expression such as non-(soldiers) for example.

I’m really struggling with the message from the across extra letters. Can anyone help with hints to the thirteenth (Roman’s date…..) and fourteenth (Air half gone….). I have the answers - I think - but cannot parse and therefore can’t identify the extra letters.