Friday 23rd May 2025

Friday again, an I'm a sleepy slugabed. Again.

I sleep through the alarm, and Jools wakes me as she's leaving for yoga.

So, I get up, get dressed then do the bins, in case the collections are early, then have coffee and check on the world.

Not much to report.

Jools comes back at half eight, so we have breakfast, soon after I am out to the doctor's to have a blood test.

All such things are now done in their surgery on London Street, so I drive into town and park as ASDA, walk through and report in.

I drop off a sample, then wait for the nurse to be free to take some blood.

I am now at the age when the NHS is far more interested in what comes out of my body.

Anyway, I was out by twenty to ten, not the hour delay I had last time, so could walk back to the car and then make my way to PGD to meet with Fran.

The usual mix of the patient and inpatient drivers on the way, and apparently, my use of the highway code to decide who should give way when there is room for a single vehicle makes me some kind of criminal.

Oh well.

I arrive at Barham, go down Gravel Castle Road to the Elham Valley road, then almost into Elham itself before turning off.

Fran is still walking to the site, so I stop and take her the last 400 yards, then up into the reserve to look for the Monkeys and other orchids.

I was only here three days ago, and things hadn't changed much. So instead I chatted to folks from the KWT who were surveying the site for orchid numbers, before going to sit on an ant mound.

As I sat down, I lost balance, so rolled off and was left on my back, legs in the air.

I don't think anyone saw this.

Fran was done fairly quick, so we walk back to the car then drive back to Barham for the White Lady.

Over the weekend and into next week I will have to come back four times to show various people the Lady.

We park and walk up the track, cutting into the wood. At first I couldn't see her, and thought maybe she had been dug up. But she was just hiding behind vegetation, and so was there in her glory.

Fran snapped her.

And then we moved onto the Birds Nest, where I think we found 12 spikes.

Back to the car and a request from Fran to take her to Folkestone for some Late Spider action.

I had heard that a spike was out, so off we went, more than hopeful.

And yet once we reached the site, we could see no spikes or pink sepals.

On the third scan I finally see a yellowy spike and a flash of dark red, a single spike.

Fran went to get her shot, I didn't bother as I had seen others at another site earlier in the week.

And with that the orchiding was over.

I dropped her off at Priory so she could get a Fran back home, while I braved Tesco for a few things to tide us over the weekend.

That done, I escape the madness back to the car, then back home all before three, so the weekend could start.