Hydrangea

I remained in Tiptree today, and it turned out to be a good job I did. On the Chesham local Facebook page earlier on there were warnings and photos of a tractor and a big overturned trailer with huge bales of hay all over both carriageways of the main route through the town. On arrival, I would have been caught up in the traffic chaos that it caused - not what you want at the end of a minimum hour and a half’s drive round the M25. Thankfully it seems nobody was hurt in the incident.

After doing the main grocery shop quite early at Sainsbury’s, I got on with unwrapping my books and putting them into piles according to subject matter. The main bulk of them are associated in one way or another with the BBC (some, written by the pioneering founders of the BBC, are now 100 years old). There are quite a few about the Great Exhibition of 1851, the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, and the Festival of Britain of 1951. Also, some books on the local history of the area where I grew up, some weighty tomes on Led Zeppelin published by themselves and others, plus signed autobiographies by other musicians. I have lots more signed books to go into the cabinet if they’ll fit, so I’ll bring those back from the flat next week. The job is bigger than I thought and not finished yet, but at least some of the boxes that filled the bedroom have now been emptied.

And so another blip from the garden. The hydrangea seemed all but dead last year, having been scorched into obliteration by the strong sun. With all the rain we’ve had this year it has been miraculously resurrected, and is so far doing okay. The sun coming through some foliage made it look magically luminous today, which I hope has translated into my photo.