It is finally fixin’ to rain out here on Long Island. The sky feels as full as my tummy after a yummy Sunday lunch with friends. I had such a good time I came home and took a nap. When I woke up the sky was darker, and thunder rumbled in the distance. If it rains hard and I don’t take pictures of my garden before it gets beat to hell… So I scampered out…

“Scamper” might be a little strong.

For new readers, Bee Cottage is my house in East Hampton.

But here’s the thing I wanted to tell you: Snapseed. It’s the iPhone app I used processing these photos.  There are many photo apps, of course, each one cooler and more mysterious to me than the next. But this one I’m investing in. Literally. At 5 bucks they ain’t giving it away, but it does so many cool things. And if I can do it, trust me…

Hydrangeas are not show-offs, but they are dependable by golly. And more exotic than you think. There is a nursery in France, Hortensias du Haut Bois, that grows more than 750 varieties and cultivars of hortensia, as they are called in French. Amazing. (If you go to the site there is an “English” button in the left hand column to translate the text.)

Girls used to be called Hortense. Whatever happened to that? It’s pretty, but it’s kind of hard to imagine someone saying “Hortense, I must have you now.” Maybe that’s what happened to it.

Admittedly like many words Hortense sounds sexier in French than in English, Or-TAHNS vs. HOR-tense. In English it sounds like nervous prostitute.  Maybe we ought to re-think that last paragraph.

Josephine Bonaparte had a pretty daughter named Or-TAHNS by her first husband, who got the guillotine. Her second husband–Napoleon–married her off to his brother Louis. They were not happy but they did have three children, one of whom grew up to be Napoleon III. Now I am really off the subject.

What was the subject?

It’s definitely raining now. I did the right thing. Y’all have a good week. See you soon.

Love,

Hortense

I was just seeing how it sounded.