Flower Friday : : Oak Leaf Hydrangea

I've photographed this before but it changes so much in both color and distribution of small blossoms that it seems like a new flower. It's quite warm today but I thought it looked cool in the shady part of the garden in front of the bamboo stems.

My computer died just as the Pilates class was ending. The battery is just about shot but I thought it was plugged in. It was, but the power strip it was plugged into was turned off.  Bob, the other birthday boy turning 80 was feeling a bit under the weather this morning after having too much fun with another small group of friends last night, so our coffee morning has morphed into cake and champagne at their house tomorrow. This social distanced entertaining can get complicated....

 Dana went to see Kathy about her knee which was so  painful last weekend that she couldn't put any weight on it. I went along for back-up and to learn how to apply the tape which Kathy has been putting on  MY knee for years. It sounds like Dana has the same 'degenerative changes'  In her knee that I have. She also has the same contracture of a tendon on the bottom of her foot that John has. As my mother was fond of saying, "Children seem to inherit the worst characteristics of each parent...." Exercises , some basic postural changes and a gentle lecture from Kathy about not powering through everything were administered. 

We came home through the back country roads characteristic of rural areas, wandering along a fairly straight road an suddenly making a sharp right (or left) hand turn in the middle of nowhere. The roads still go around the farmer's field rather than through it. The area was devastated by fires in 2017 and18, and was taking quite a long time to be rebuilt, but a lot has changed since the last time I drove through there. A lot of new houses are being built and quite a few are now finished.

We were going to take two cars but decided in the end to go together wearing masks, opening all the windows in the car and setting in separate seats. NO virus could have lived in that wind tunnel and I seem to have gotten a new hairdo out of it as well.  I'm not sure getting in the car, opening the windows and driving down the freeway at speed is my idea of how to start my day, but every time I wash my hair is a new adventure over which I have very little control....

Thanks to Biker Bear for continuing the Flower Friday challenge and providing us with with a reason to take some uplifting images. Is is really the last day of July? Has this odd way of life really been going on for over four months?