Friday 10th May 2024

Friday.

At last.

And the second day of a four day weekend for most of Europe, which means its going to be quiet at work.

I slept poorly due to my knee, but then slept through the alarm when Jools got up, and only woke when she walked to the car to drive to the sports centre.

I'd better get up.

Better get dressed.

Better make coffee.

Better clean out the kittylitter.

Better take out the bins.

Phew.

And then work?

And then work.

A morning of meetings, but with not enough people attending to form a quorum, which makes them all pretty much pointless.

I press on and the day passes. News did come of three mass corona ejections and the largest sunspot group ever seen, meaning there was a good chance of seeing the northern lights from Kent, and other places in the south of England.

Jools back back at half one, so after a brew we get changed and load the car, as we are now entering peak orchid season, though some three weeks early, it was time to return to the downs above Folkestone for the Late Spiders.

With the main season upon us, most sites are within half an hour's drive from home, so its not taking long to get anywhere. And Folkestone being one of the closest.

We park on the lane, go through the gate, walk up the path to the fenced off area, and begin scouring the sword.

The really early spike which used to grow at the front has now gone to orchid heaven, so looking further up and further away means this takes time.

But after 5 minutes, I see two likely spikes, climb over the fence, and being careful where I tread, make my way up the bank, and indeed find two Late Spiders just coming into flower.

One had no sepals, the other green and white striped ones, which was pretty special.

And that was that. Jools had a physio appointment, so we go home, have another brew, so she can attend the appointment at half four. I, meanwhile, check the shots I had taken.

And then time for the quiz, and I nearlyskipped it as I had failed to get a point these last four weeks, but good job I did attend, as I spotted the answer in the cryptic clue, that being the shoreline of the Black Sea, thus an LP by XTC. I beat 5 others to win 10 whole points.

And then quickly go to Jen's, picking JOhn on the way for cards and supper of meat and potato pie with mushy peas.

And wine.

At six the aurora alarm went off, then went off every half hour.

In the meantime, we played cards, which John ended up winning.

On the way home we tried looking north to see if we could see the norther lights, but it didn't seem dark enough. The reality was that the apparently lingering daylight WAS the northern lights.

We got home, and I put the football on with the whole of the second half to go. I checked the aurora scanner and it was crazy, 953 nT. Jools was already ready for bed, but I said we'd better go up the cliffs, as that had good views looking north.

While a French couple sat in their van having supper, we walked onto the grassed area on the cliffs and waited for it to get dark.

By the time it got to quarter past ten, it was clear the light in the sky was the lights. As we watched we could fee form in the colours, faint green shimmering curtains of light.

As others have found, the camera, even the iphone, brought out the colours more than the eye could see.

We stood for an hour watching the lights, not as good as some saw, but we saw them.

Just after midnight, and again at three, the strength of the lights increased further to close to 1400nT, which would have been wonderful to see, but we were tucked up in bed by then.