And on what should have been a splendid first day of a weekend of doing what I wanted when I wanted it turned into an episode of The Young Ones, mostly the episode ‘sick’ as I was most certainly ‘under the weather’. It all began on Friday morning, as I developed a sore throat, the unmistakable first sign of impending sneezes and chesty coughs. I coped all well and good through the day, but the combination of poor breathing and a temperature of 21 degrees in the house meant sleep took a long while to come and last less than four hours. I was up at four in the morning, and so flagged during the day as tiredness took over.
The weather forecast was poor for the day, with brightness in the afternoon, but with heavy and potentially thundery showers too. So, we did little during the morning, I played many old CDs I have not listened to in years, revisiting them as Jools told me I should listen to music more, not just radio. So, as the day went on we listened to various albums by The Clash, Arcade Fire, Bunnymen and more lesser listened to stuff too. The day passed, whilst outside the skies darkened once again with the promise of more storms.
I logged onto a site that records lightning strikes, and as the afternoon wore on into evening, I tracked the storms as they moved up the north French coast an into the Channel. We heard the thunder first, rolling around the skies like a distant battle, but then we saw the flashes of lightning. As the evening wore on, the storm got nearer, but not as near, or as fierce as the previous evening’s, but the rain was certainly harder. We switched off all the lights and watched the storms head up through the Channel until they dies out, and one of our neighbours moved their party into the garden, the whoops and snatches of 80s pop hits made me reach for the ear plugs, until sleep took me.
Sunday.
Well, the forecast was better, and so we decided to head up to the north of the county in search of another orchid. Once out of bed, I looked out to see blue skies above, better than expected. But in the time it took me to get downstairs to put the coffee on, fog was rolling in, obscuring the village and the rest of the world.
We decided to go anyway, and loaded the car with camera gear and set off, the fog clearing as we headed north up the motorway, and once we were north of Ashford, there was even hints of patches of blue between the cloud. So we headed up right to the M25, then turned off, looking for the one spot in all of the SE where a small green flowering orchid can be seen.
We had directions, which were very accurate indeed, however, we mis-read them which resulted us in being about a mile out, but opposite a large field of Lavender, which meant that if nothing else, I would have fine shots of that if we failed to find the orchids. Jools went on a hunt, re-read the instructions once more, and found them in a few minutes.
The Green-flowered Helleborines is rare as I said before, I suppose it is a medium sized orchid, clearly a Hellebornine, but to the casual observer, maybe even an orchid fanatic, could walk past and not realise. Where we looked, there were about 20 spikes, so we both got down to work snapping away. I suppose those who live nearby are used to macro-photographers on their hands and knees at this spot. But then again, maybe they just think we’re weird.
We headed back down the A20, then cross-country to another nature reserve, where there can be found some rather robust Broad-leafed, out in the open in a clearing in the middle of an ancient wood, situated on a chalk hillside. We parked up, and set out into the wood, with the sun threatening to break through the light cloud cover and make for perfect orchid snapping conditions.
We found the orchids with no trouble, some were nearing two feet high, and jam-packed with blooms. It was easy to get shots, even if in the now bright sunlight, my perspiration causing both my glasses and viewfinder to steam up, so shots were by guesswork at times.
The clearing was a delight, filled with woodland and heath butterflies, I managed to snap another Ringlet, before we decided that we had what we wanted and we could hear lunch calling. So, back to the car and into the heavy traffic heading to Margate and the coast, before we turned off and went down past Canterbury and home.
Home where the fog still shrouded everything, and yet it was humid. I dished up the remainder of the pasta salad I cooked the day before, so within ten minutes of getting home, we were tucking into a fine lunch, perfect as we both had skipped breakfast and were rather hungry.
That evening we settled down to watch the final Monty Python show on UK Gold, which I discovered was on by pure chance was don’t watch that much TV or really care about what is on. So, we watched the show, and it was OK< and I smiled a bit, and laughed mostly in anticipation as the realisation as to which sketch was coming up next. Who could begrudge them a final hurrah, after what they did for comedy? Not me. Sadly, broadcasting rules meant that some of the material broadcast before nine had to be bleeped out as things like lady’s gardens and the such is still a non-no. So things have not moved on so much after all, perhaps?
A one, two
A one, two, three, four
Half a bee, philosophically
Must, ipso facto, half not be
But half the bee has got to be
A vis-a-vis its entity, d'you see?
But can a bee be said to be
Or not to be an entire bee
When half the bee is not a bee
Due to some ancient injury?
Singing
A laa dee dee, a one two three
Eric, the half a bee
A, B, C, D, E, F, G Eric, the half a bee
Is this wretched demi-bee
Half asleep upon my knee
Some freak from a menagerie?
No! It's Eric, the half a bee
A fiddle de dum, a fiddle de dee
Eric, the half a bee
Hoh hoh hoh, tee hee hee
Eric, the half a bee
I love this hive, employee
Bisected accidentally
One summer afternoon, by me
I love him carnally
He loves him carnally
Semi-carnally
The end
Cyril Connelly?
No, semi-carnally
Oh, Cyril Connelly
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