Saturday 26th March 2016

Easter was never a big thing in our house, even lower key than Christmas. I remember getting Easter Eggs, most of the time an egg, but really, that's all any child needs, not dozens. Anyway, I suppose the grandparents migt have come round on Easter Sunday, but that was it. Once I had passed my driving test and we had a car, it came a habit rather than a tradition on Good Friday to drive into deepest Suffolk to visit Bildeston and Kersey, for some spring sunshine, a meal out and look at the flowering daffs.

There was a fine old pub in Bildeston, it claimed to be in the top ten most haunted buildings in England. I don't know about that, but I do know they served the best scampi Provençale I have ever tasted. At least that would have kept the Easter vampires at bay. And Kersey, an astonishingly attractive village built either side of the lane whuch crossed the shallow valley with a ford instead of the bridge serving as a crossing point of the steam that flows through the valley. I say flow, meanders is a metter description. There was always a few ducks with a new army of chicks following, mixing it with the traffic crossing the ford.

This continued after Dad passed away 20 years ago, at least whilst I lived at home with Mother; although traveling in the car with Mother would be a trial, looking at the wonderful south Suffolk countryside certainly wasn't; attractive villages with churches, windmills and timber-framed houses. All very chocolate box pretty.

Friday Therefore, Easter for us is an opportunity to draw breath and see how far we have come in the new year, relax and maybe get out and do some stuff, usually to do with photography, and being start of the season; orchids. And for 2016, nature presented us with a day so springlike, it was almost too perfect. Heck, it was even warm with the sunshine and lack of a breeze. Even when we got up at about 6, the sun was already climbing into a clear blue sky, well, beyond the wispy clouds that the sun soon burned off.

After breakfast we drove down to Samphire Hoe, or tried to anyways. No trouble driving along the Deal road to the Duke of Yorks, then turning left onto Jubilee Way, we were confronted by a line of traffic nearly all the way down. I quickly undertook a U turn and instead went down past the Castle and into town, driving up Military Road, through St Martins and getting onto the A20 out of town at Ayecliffe finally up Shakespeare to the turn off to the Hoe.

Down through the service tunnel down through the cliff and out onto the Hoe, paying the £1 for the two hour parking. Jools seemed to suggest that a walk along the sea wall as preferable to a stumble, looking at your feet, or just beyond for orchid rosettes! How mad is that?

So I grab my cameras and walk up the track beside which, the orchids should be showing. It was always going to be a long shot seeing flowering spikes in March, especially as there had been a dip in temperatures these last two weeks, so it was no surprise to find hundreds of rosettes, but no spikes, and indeed a lot of where the orchids are found, barely dry land after being flooded all winter. But even still, a walk in the lea of the cliffs, sheltered from the winds by the Hoe meant it was downright warm, warm enough not to have a coat on for sure.

Jools joins me by the entrance to Abbotscliff Tunnel, which is now silent, since the last trains ran through it on Christmas Eve, and the rails gently rust.

Once back at the car, we had to try to work out a route to Barham avoiding the traffic, not that hard really, but I chose the scenic route up the Elham Valley towards Canterbury and Bridge, leaving the motorway at the Hythe turning. The sun was abroad in the sky above us, an its warm light brought the countryside to live, in vivid, living colour. I had thought about stopping for brunch in at the cafe in Elham, but it was closed, and anyway, it was jam=packed with cars making parking a real problem. So we drove on to Barham, turning up the hill and into the boondocks.

We park at the bottom of the bridleway; Jools says she is stating put to read her Kindle, so I put on my boots and begin the slithery climb up the down to where the Early Purples are to be found. I had not gone ten yards when a bloke with a dog asked, friendly like, what I was doing, and was really interested in the orchid thing, but I did warn him about the mania that lives within orchidmania.

At the top of the down, I found the rosettes, all well formed, and a couple of spikes beginning to form, but flowering spikes were maybe two weeks away,a nd that is with fine warm weather; with a typical went and windy bank holiday, it could be a month. Still, orchids to come, and in huge numbers.

On the other side of the road, I went to check the Lady and Twaybalde and Fly: and everywhere, rosettes and unfurling spikes were growing through the leaf litter. I take snaps of them in dappled sunlight, falling through the canopy of the trees, high above. Of course, I see now, how much lighter it is, without leaves of course. It will be a different place in a month when the Lady begin to flower.

We walk back to the car, then work a route back home, thinking that to go via Wingham to Sandwich, then south to Deal and home. Which is what we did. I suppose we could have cut caross country, but with the radio on, and the fine views of the Kent countryside as we drove north over the A2 then towards Thanet before turning towards Deal. Surprisingly, there was so little traffic about, I decide to drive through the centre of town then south along The Strand past Deal Castle to home. It was so warm now, we open the car windows and the breeze blew back our hair, or tried to in my case.

Back home we make a brew and I put some crispbakes in the oven, defrost some seeded rolls, and soon we soon we are feasting on lovely hot filled rolls. Before going out, I have prepared a batch of dough for saffron buns, and left it to rise above a warm radiator and in the warmth of the sun. In the end it had been some four hours there, so when we came home the mix was level with the top of the bowl, but light and easy to work with. I make them into buns, leave for another half hour to rise again, then pop into the oven once the crispbakes come out, cooking quickly.

So wonderful did they smell, that I make another brew and we have one of the fresh buns right out of the oven, smothered in melting butter As you do.

Happy Easter!

The sun begins to move further round to the west, so the back garden is soon in shade, and gets positively chilly. We come inside and put the radio on, throw some shapes in the living room to confuse the hungry cats.

The evening is filled with 80s pop music from TOTP from 1981, then there is The Don in the garden and finally Springwatch. All good stuff, but all that fresh air meant we were pooped again. Best go to bed.