Apres moi le déluge

Today represented an attempt to get back to some sort of normality, so I was reasonably organised in the morning so that I could get out to my art class at 11am. This turned out to be a very jolly polyglot affair as one participant was Swedish (but speaks excellent English) and another French from the deep south of the country so that his accent is wildly different from that taught in schools here; his wife interprets between us when I can't get his flattened vowel sounds. Today he was moved to announce to all that I spoke very good French, so you can imagine he's a pal ... There were also two dogs in class: Hoy, the teacher's collie and a small rug-like fellow who sat under my feet most of the time and belongs to the teacher's sister. I finished my watercolour portrait, and had time to play around with acrylic paint and a palette knife, which was interesting.

After lunch I remembered the massive hydrangeas in the front garden. They're ancient - well, they seemed mature when we bought the house 48 years ago - and tend to a wishy-washy white flower and much seemingly dead, dry wood which supports living stuff above, so don't have much to commend them. But the border faces north behind a stone wall, and I'd have to tend to other plants if we got rid of them, so I'm stuck with this marathon every year except when I get the gardener merely to hack them.
Today I launched into the bigger one just as the first rain began, which meant that by the time the grass/moss was covered in dead blooms and random branches it was somewhat damp, and so was I.

Himself arrived back from an organ-practising session in the church (don't ask) in time to give me a hand bagging the rubbish and carting it through the house (we don't have a side passage because of the oddity of our feus on the original plans) to leave in the back garden shed until they can go to the tip. There are still half a dozen blooms on the tallest part of the bush, but I need to renew my strength to wield the long-handled loppers above my head (unless I just savage them lower down and leave them to see what happens...).

Now, dinner over and the usual somnolent evening (no tea spills), I realise my shoulders and upper arms are aching - perhaps some ibuprofen is called for, though I have to have  my wits about me in the morning, so maybe not.

Blipping the half-tidied mess (I forgot about a photo till I'd filled one big bag) and, to cheer me up, the japonica that has always been, like the hydrangeas, a fixture in the corner. Can you tell that I'm a gardener of desperation rather than enthusiasm?

And it's been pouring steadily ever since.