FLOWER FRIDAY - CLEMATIS "BLUE ANGEL"

I know I have blipped our beautiful Clematis, “Blue Angel” before, and I make no apology for blipping it again today for Flower Friday, but this time it’s a close-up shot.

We were both out in the garden quite early this morning;  I did some watering, because our new plants needed it, but it took me a lot longer than it takes Mr. HCB because I was taking photographs too!  

Then we went outside our fence to try and hack away some of the Council ivy and other stuff that was growing too near to our boundary fence because we hope to be having a new fence very soon.  We have left all the cuttings outside on the bank and if the Council wants to, they can take it away, but my guess is that it will just lie there and rot, which is fine by us, as it makes a barrier and will mean people don’t come and peer over the fence into our garden.  Before our house was built, we think there was probably a hedgerow outside the fence and judging by the size of the thorns on the Blackthorn bushes, that are now quite high, it is quite old.

It was a really hard job and Mr. HCB had to resort to the bow saw in several places.  I was tasked with taking the ivy off the fence and when the sun was on my back, it felt even harder, so Mr. HCB decided we needed to find a shadier place and as we have a very long fence, it was quite easy to find, round the corner.  We then proceeded to cut down some small saplings that were too close to the fence - and the bow saw was needed again.  

Then in order to get to the boundary of our property, we needed to tackle the laurel, which has grown from the back of our neighbours’ property, so more sawing was needed.  I think Mr. HCB quite likes doing manual work, but I can't manage that, so am just his side-kick and trim the branches before laying them down.  

I’m sure we both burned off lots of calories, so when we came back, we had a cup of coffee and a piece of fruit cake that was made for us by a lovely friend, and brought over yesterday afternoon.  Well, sometimes, it just has to be done!

I hope everyone has a great weekend - it looks as if the weather will be good, so don’t forget the sun cream if you go outside.  Mr. HCB will be indoors doing some of his new jigsaw puzzle this afternoon and I am expecting a friend, who has kindly done some shopping for us, over for coffee - so it might even entail another piece of cake - at this rate, it won’t last very long!  

“Hard work spotlights the character of people: 
     some turn up their sleeves, 
          some turn up their noses, 
               and some don’t turn up at all.” 
Sam Ewing