Sunday 8th June 2025

The orchid community is, by and large, a friendly one. And once two people get to know each other there can be an exchange of information or knowledge.

Getting to that level of trust can be difficult, and with the cliques that can form, making it even harder. But there is also a community within the HOS, and people, like I have done, post messages asking for information on UK, Irish or European orchids and for tip. And sometime offering the chance to visit a new site, if you're interested.

So, a couple of week ago, a post said that a colony of over 40 Bee Orchids were found on a communal grassed area within a private and (non) gated community in Walmer.

I was interested, so the guy who posted and I exchanged numbers, and I called him to let him know we were on the way.

That was lunchtime.

Before then there was a half-assed lay in, cats fed and breakfast made, as the bright day with sunny intervals remained cloudy, for the most part.

Washing was done, I had a shower, so come midday we set off for Walmer, with traffic light for a summer Sunday at the seaside.

We parked near the Berry, walked through the gates, and Roger came out to meet us.

After shaking hands, we walked round the corner and from 30m I could see the spikes in the shade, making a mockery of the dry and stunted conditions elsewhere.

60, maybe more, spikes were thriving. Some with up to four open flowers on the spike.

I check each one over and see that most seemed very similar, suggesting vegetive procreation, rather than by pollination.

After 15 minutes, we thanked our host, with promises of more meetings in the future, as he has never seen ALTs, which I think I can arrange.

Ahem.

We called into the Berry mainly to say how sad we were that Chris is selling up after 20 years there, but he and his young family had gone out for the afternoon, so Jools had a cider and me a pint of Harvey's Best, and we took our drinks out to the courtyard to sup and eat our crisps.

Back to the car to come home and have a late lunch of pork pie and salad, which meant we finished eating and washing up near just after five, with most of the day having slipped by and we done so little.

Football in the evening: the Final of the Nation's League. Spain v Portugal. And was a good game, somehow Spain losing on penalties and Ronaldo scoring Portugal's leveller in the 2nd half.

I drank wine and ate peanuts as the players ran up and down. A fine state of affairs, i think.