There's life ...

I hadn't realised till last evening that the forecast for today said no rain. Somehow I'd got it into my head that it was going to rain every day in the foreseeable future - can't think how I got that idea. But that promise of no rain saw me through the rather cloudy morning, when I hung out two rather overdue cycles of washing and did little else of any worth because I was still knackered after yesterday, saw me deciding that I wasn't going to waste precious hours walking around in the sunshine (for it did appear, in the afternoon) but instead was going to tackle the garden.

I have to say I was sorely tempted to do some ladylike seed-planting in the sunny back garden, but the hydrangeas in the front, where the shadow of the house fell on all but the border where I'd be working, called to me. So out I went, in a pair of dire jeans with one knee hanging out (no, not in a fashionable way) and the jacket I used to wear to trot along to meet my firstborn after school, now covered in dark green paint splodges from painting the shed. 

I should at this point explain that the hydrangea bushes are ancient; they were fully mature when we bought the house almost 50 years ago, and when I wasn't working I used to hack at them in the morning when whichever baby it was was having a morning nap. I had a vague notion about leaving a growing point per branch, but there were always these great dead, grey-looking branches that seemed to have died and I never knew what was best ...

Anyway, my blip shows just what I was up against. The larger photo on the left is of the more-or-less pruned bush - it's all one plant, despite that bit hanging towards the left - and the other two are both of unlikely shoots on the apparently dead branches deep in the bush, making me mutter half-remembered Eliot ...breeding  Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing. Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain ... as you do when you're wrestling with the long-handled loppers with a branch poking you in the eye. 

I also thought about ticks ...

The conclusion to my toil saw me with Himself lugging all the prunings (two bushes plus the odd intrusive long sticks from willow spirea and some truly jaggy japonica branches which seemed to be dead) down to the car, which Himself brought round from the back so that he could take it to the tip (sorry - recycling centre). I would love just to pile it all up in the middle of the garden and set a light to it, but it's anti-social among houses and the moss would never recover. 

I was having a quiet restorative phone call on the back garden bench, with the seaplane from the islands drifting over head, when it struck me that it's odd, this small town life, with its restrictions that belong to urban life and yet the little, random things - like the seaplane - reminding us that we're a part of something bigger, quainter ...

We had dinner at a sensible time, followed by Compline. Then I fell asleep in front of a programme I actually wanted to watch - story of my life, really.

Is it crazy to have my second shower in 6 hours? Because that's what I'm about to do...