Tuesday 12th May 2026

We are at the time of year when there are orchids and butterflies everywhere, and despite being retired, not enough time to get round them all.

Coupled with the fact the weather is turning unsettled for the next week, so walking up downs, through woodlands and across pastures isn't so much fun with rain hammering down. No matter how much the garden needs it.

So, thoughts turned to a new site for the year: Lydden and Temple Ewell Down, and the annual hunt for Burnt (Tip) orchids.

Or orchid.

Jools had fitness class, then knit and natter in town, so I asked if Iain fancied a walk up on the downs, and if he did, could he drive?

Yes to both.

So with the plan for the day set out, I could rise at ten past five and be on my way to the sports centre forty minutes later, with the weather being clear blue skies and the promise of warmth later.

I do my forty minutes, then go to fill the car up at Tesco. As I turn right at the roundabout to enter, I see a young lady wanting to cross, so I stop to let her over the road, and some twat in an ancient Peugeot crashes into the back of me.

I had slowed down under control, so no fault on my part.

After shouting at me for stopping, I point out I was letting a pedestrian cross the road. He quietens down.

I inspect the damage: the bumper of our car is cracked, hardly noticeable, and I suppose I could have claimed against his insurance, but his whole bumper had disintegrated, and shards of it littered the road.

I picked up the pieces and hand it to him, get in the car and go round to the filling station.

Sigh.

Sixty quid, and the car wasn't that empty. Thanks to Trump.

I pay and drive home, so that Jools can take it and go into town, leaving me with two and a half hours to have breakfast, get showered and dressed.

Which I do.

For the last two years, Lydden Down has been my Everest. In that two years back I had my town cartilage, and last yar I did not try to get up it until ALT season in August, so that's just halfway up.

So this would be another test of my improved fitness and lythe figure.

Ahem.

Iain came at half nine, and he drove us to Temple Ewell, for there it is a climb through the lower wood, beside the lowest meadow, up through the second wood, through the stile into the open downland, across one meadow, up through the second and then to the top going round the scar that separated the two reserves.

News is that although I did huff and puff, and stop several times for a breather and stretch my back, it wasn't anyway near as bad as its been in previous years. Even once at the top I could feel the coolness of the breeze in my face as we dropped down into Lydden Reserve.

Sadly, the weather had changed. It was cloudy, the wind had built, so we saw no butterflies until we reached the Burnt orchid site, where I found a single Small copper sheltering among the long grass.

No Burnts found, though further up the down I did find three colonies of Early spiders, two I knew about, the last a surprise, and many spikes were in good condition still, so we stop to take shots on the way back.

The climb back is gentler, and so not much stopping, so I felt the breeze even more, and Iain said he wished he had put another coat on. I was just wearing a t shirt.

Back down at the car, he drove me home, dropping me off at the end of the road, so I could walk home the final few yards, and my knees could scream at my brain why we had done 14k steps before midday.

Lunch was, when Jools returned a bit of a mix: Chilli crispy beef (my best attempt yet, fried mash, and the remainder of the nachos.

It went together well.

I tried to find something to watch on TV in the afternoon: hundreds and hundreds of channels, and nothing worth watching. Apparently. Not that there is a functioning TV Guide to help, just a doomscroll of Sky's recommendations, none of which look the slightest bit interesting.

I listen to a podcast and try to stay awake, which I just about manage.

For the evening there is play-off football, though I grew tired as the game neared the 90th minute, and it became obvious there'd be extra time, so went to bed.