Wednesday 12th April 2017

And with luck I should be home until next Thursday. Which would be nice.

Jools has no short week other than Friday off, so she has two full days of work to do, and so do I if I'm honest. However, before then I have to take the car back to the Eastern Docks, and then get home. There was the option of a taxi or a bus, but as it was a nice morning, I thought I might walk. Especially after three days either driving or sitting in the office, I could do with the exercise. So I thought.

So once Jools had left, I had breakfast, then drove along Reach Road to the Castle, then down the hill and doubling back to the docks.

Needless to say there was an ulterior motive behind this; not only some exercise, but to take some shots and look for orchids.

I knew some were known to grow up on the cliffs, but didn't know where.

Initially, my walk was dominated by the port; the noise and hustle and bustle, but as I climbed up the steep path leading from East Cliff, under Jubilee Way, I could look back down over the port, East Cliff towards the beach, promenade and then to Avo and Shakespeare Cliff behind. I love this view and the town, but then its nice to leave it all behind.

The Easter rush had begun, and with each minute more and more cars and trucks were arriving, and the queue backing up. Pretty sure in the hour Townwall Street would be blocked.

I am looking for orchids; Early Spiders, so I do wander about looking at the likely places, and fail to find them.

I walk to the top of the steep path leading to the hairpin bend by the entrance to the NT place, and still cannot find any orchids.

I walk back down the cliff to the path leading to the Cliff Road. I pass two older ladies, or they pass me as I am peering at a rosette on the ledge, one is worried I might fall to my death.

No, I am hunting for orchids I say, and so we chat about orchids, birds, other plants and churches for at least ten minutes. She is still worried I might fall to my death, and I assure her I won't.

At least not today.

Once down on the Cliff Road, I scour the edge of the ledge, and finally spot a single flowering spike. It only probably opened that morning, the petals not properly withdrawn, so it looks like a shy laughing duck.

At the the top of the slope, where the trackbed turns left, I am rewarded with views along the cliffs northwards. Old cliff falls have been mostly washed away. It is low tide, and the rocks at the foot of the cliffs are exposed, and I could just make out the seabirds and waders looking for food in the rock pools.

As predicted, thick clouds were rolling in from the west, so when taking shots looking back at the port, looked like a storm was brewing.

Soon, the sunshine had gone, replaced by a chill wind, and there was me without a coat, so I doubled my pace and strode off for South Foreland and home. On the way back I call in at the village shop for something for lunch; some part baked rolls and a bag of cheese and onion crisps. And an ice cream. And a pack of ginger nuts, so to make up the bill to over a fiver so not to incur 50p charges.

So I walk down Station Road munching on a "classic" Magnum, when my sister-in-law stopped beside me, she wanted to pick up her tobacco, So I let her take me the final few steps up Station Road and along our street to our house. She, Meg and the old folks are going on their holibobs on Thursday; a cruise in the Med, and so she needed her snout. Anyway, she says nice things about the garden before she dashes leaving me home alone once more.

And so with the time somehow ticking towards midday, I made a start on work. And have lunch too, in fact the first roll was so good I also eat the second one mid afternoon as I work. Such is life.

At five Molly and I watch Time Team, a dig from Brancaster in north Norfolk; a place I had not been to, but I found it interesting that so little was known about it. Anyway, so many finds, remains of building and stories uncovered.

I cook fried wild garlic sausages and new potatoes for dinner, cooking them once Jools gets back, having battled through the holiday traffic.

There is football on the radio in the evening, time to write a blog and edit shots. Outside more cloud had rolled in, and there is the promise of rain. But that promise unfulfilled.