Saturday 6th May 2017

And here is the weekend, and very welcome it is too. For a change I lay in bed until I can hear the cooker being lit which means Jools is making coffee already. I get up and go down, ready for a nice hot cup thrust into my hand.

I do have plans for the day; a haircut and then orchid chasing. And so to get the most orchids out of the day, I needed to be at the barbers as early as possible so to be in and out quick. In fact I was standing outside the door at half eight, with 15 minutes to wait I have a chance to see who else is about so early on a Saturday; people out on a mission, going to Lidl or the newsagent, and even the tyre shop opposite is already working hard. I wait until Peter arrives, unlocks the shops and after tidying the place up, he starts on my barnet.

Now that Alan has retired, the atmosphere in the shop is very relaxed, with less insults being thrown. Especially when there is only one of the barbers in. I shorns me of my locks, and regales me with stories of his neighbourhood and the frequent drink drivers who can't make it round the sharp bend outside.

Once I am done, I pay and am free to leave, already feeling colder around my temples. But he has at least rid me of the hairs coming out of my ears and the Dennis Healey eyebrows which were looking more like an unkempt hedge. They will return, even bushier I suspect.

I go back home for breakfast croissants and more coffee, before deciding that ten should be the time we leave, even if the weather is still overcast and breezy.

Our first call is Park Gate Down to check on the Monkey. I could not disclose the location, but Google Monkey Orchid in Kent and PGD is the result you will get. Anyway, with its new fence and gate, the down is looking fine, after a dry winter the ground is hard and there are many, many rosettes to be seen. As well as plenty Early Purples out, even if many are much smaller than their woodland family. I snap a few, but we have come a way into the season so EPOs don't make the blood race any more.

I scour the second paddock for rosettes, and finally find a couple, and both have spikes showing with the formation of initially white flowers, that will soon turn to pink and finally purple. It is easy to forget that these are nationally rare plants that grow in maybe no more than three or four other locations, and I know people who would travel hundreds of miles just to be here, and for us it is just down the road.

In the next paddock I am looking for Fly. I know they are there and I know where they have grown in the past. But I walk along the top path, looking on both sides and see none. I try to find the single Lady and three or four Greater Butterfly, but fail to find any of them. What a poor trip is was turning out to be!

On the way back I walk slowly again, until something catches my eye. I know right away it's a Fly, but after seeing it once in passing, could I find it again? I could after a few seconds looking. And as it is so near the path I can get down to snap it, only then in the background seeing at least another half dozen Fly spikes, all in flower, and much better than the one I was going to snap.

Happy with that, I walk back to the car where Jools was waiting. I had remembered to bring some biscuits for a snack with me, and squash too, but the plan now was to stop at the village shop in Stelling Minnis for sausage rolls. I give Jools a tenner and comes back with sausage rolls ANd Double Deckers. And ice cream. So we drive to Yockletts eating our Magnums. Down the narrow lane to the lay by, we meet the first ever vehicle coming the other way, and so I have to reverse back up the down to allow it to pass, as there are no passing places on the track. Oh well.

We had decided to have our lunch on the bench in the glade, so we were eager to get there, as the sun was over the yardarm and we were hungry, even after ice cream. But there was the recently cleared glade to look at, and delighted to see that most of the lady were now in bloom, including a massive spike with the densest flowering head I have seen. I snap that, then walk up the track to the glade, not sitting down until I had checked in the Fly behind and underneath the seat.

We eat the sausage rolls and sip at the squash. I had hoped to see butterflies in the meadow, but the lack of sun meant they were still roosting.

I move on, down the slope and begin to find Fly spikes in flower; singles, doubles, triples and spikes in groups. Each one more spectacular than the next. Over the road and up the path to the top meadow; and a check on the Greater Butterfly revealed one nearly ready to open. Or in a week anyway.

To the top meadow and I find it full of Lady. Almost all fully open or near to anyway. So many to choose from, so I snap the best then begin to look for more fly, only to not see any. But as before, I see one and once down level with the spike, I see more in the background. It even seemed to be getting brighter, so I hope to snap some Fly in sunshine on the lower path later.

And that's what happens; along the top of the site, through the woods in which the bluebells have almost faded to nothing already, and so many of the EPOs are also beginning to go over too. Up on the top of the slope, I find some pale EPO that were worth snapping, but their location made macro work difficult.

And then down to the bottom, and there we found more Lady, a few scattered Fly and some Helleborines spikes growing well too.

By the time we get back to the glade, the sun is out, and I see three Brimstone right in front of me, and a couple of Orange Tip on the wing too. I even manage to snap the Male Orange Tip as it fed, getting the "wing open" shot to match the underside shot I got a couple of week back.

What I really wanted to see were Green Hairstreak, and just as I had given up, I see a dark butterfly just above the grass. I follow it and sure enough it is a Green Hairstreak, and so when the sun came out it glittered. I do get shots, not good ones, but OK for a record, and proof I had seen one.

I was happy. But I realised with the time now nearly three, if we were going to see the Dukes, that would take at least two if not three more hours, and so I decide to abandon that for another day, but that did give me time to call in on the way home to look for Bird's-Nest and the Men of Lydden.

I was convinced that I knew where the Bird's Nest would grow, I ask JOols to look to the west of the site, leaving me to the east. Only for a minute later a cry from her declaring she had found one. NOt only had she found one, she had found the only one. And no matter how hard we looked, we could find no more, so I snap that so we could beat a retreat to the car and to our last stop at Lydden.

Due to the cool weather, I saw little movement from last week's showing in the spikes already open, but many more spikes merging to flower in the next two weeks or so. So I take shots because I was there, so we can go home for a brew and listen to the football.

NO Norwich this Saturday, as the season finishes and all games kicking off at lunchtime on Sunday. But the Prem was going, and so was diverting enough. Sunderland win although already relegated, and Swansea win to leapfrog Hull. All exciting stuff, if you like that kind of thing.

We have insalata caprese for dinner, and plenty of fresh bread and wine/cider too. A perfect end to the day. We start to watch Drive, but get tired and the washing up needed doing, so we will return to that on Sunday. Maybe.