Thursday 29 May 2014

Thursday 29th May 2014

Monday.

Bank Holiday Monday.

The day before Mother's (70th) birthday. Although we had been told, by Mother, that it was her 70th birthday, and yet we forgot, and so bought a standard run of the ill 'Happy Birthday Mum' card. I'm sure we will burn in hell for being so thoughtless, or not.

As I said in a previous blog, we really wanted a quiet day on Saturday, and so that meant Monday would have to be spent hurtling up the M20/M25/A12. And as I have said before, north of Ipswich, the A12 disappears into a time wormhole and you head back to the days when a bloke in a top hat walks in front of every motor vehicle. Or it just seems that way.

In order to make the trip to the past more palatable, we normally try to arrange another visit to somewhere less filled with elephants. And so this time it was planned to head to an orchid filled meadow to look for another mighty rare orchid. We programed the post code into the sat nav, and followed the instructions. Of course, in rural areas, a postcode stretches for miles and miles, and the postcode turned out to be a country lane in a field, where there might have been a WW2 airfield at some point. Here be orchids!



We headed back to the village, and asked at the local shop, where a volunteer was there serving who worked at the orchid site too. So, armed with directions, we headed to the meadow, and found, after parking, that the meadow was many hundreds of square metres. What we did see were hundreds, thousands of Green-Winged orchids. Among them were many of mixed colour, which were well worth seeing as well as photographing. We did fail to find the orchid we were looking for, nor did we find the Bee Orchids which were supposed to be there.

Green-winged Orchid, Anacamptis morio

We could have looked on and on, but we really should move on to Mothers.

Green-winged Orchid, Anacamptis morio

Lowestoft is the same as it ever was, and Mum sinks further and further into her addictions, and makes no attempt to hide her smoking. which we decide to ignore, like we really care. Anyway, Aunt Kathleen was there, so so it gave us all the opportunity to talk about football (her son is manager of Lowestoft Town FC) and other family matters rather dewal with the usual stuff.

As Kathleen left, another friend arrived, and began to talk about the cost of food at Liddl and other such banal matters. We had been there not quite 90 minutes. We made our excuses and left. I was due to fly to Denmark the next day, but in truth we had arranged to visit another Flickr friend in south Suffolk and talk stuff over with him. He also mentioned the possibility of cake.

Cake.

We drove down the A143, before turning off and heading to another picture postcard village. we parked in the main road, and headed to a group of new builds, trying to make out the numbering system which seemed to begin at three. Not much help when you're looking for number 2. Anyway, we were seen and were ushered into a house full of books. and coffee and walnut cake. Which was so nice we had two slices.

Jelltex and the Bear

Time soon passed and it was 5, and we had over two hours drive to go. We really had to leave as I had to pack, eat dinner and all the other stuff before i headed to the land of Lego on Tuesday morning. At least with the weather clouding over in the afternoon, most folks seemed to have left for home already, and we had a clear run down the A12 and onto Dartford and Kent beyond.

There was just enough time for a rushed dinner, getting packed and having a shower before the day had to end and we head to bed.

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