Friday 15th June 2018

A birthday of a former Mrs Jelltex, and my best friend from school.

Only one of which I sent wishes to via Faceache yesterday.

And it is Friday, and due to more appointments, it meant some creative planning and transport coordination. In the end, the best thing was for me to drop Jools off in the morning to catch a bus, then collect her from work at two.

That being said, and apparently no matter how long you set aside in a morning inbetween getting up and leaving the house, its never quite enough. So, with less than ten minutes before the bus left, We departed Chez Jelltex for the port and the bus stop, making it in time, though if we hadn't, I would have taken her to Hythe.

I go home to make the second coffee of the day, make breakfast of toast and Tiptree's finest three orange marmalade and start work at half seven, as I would be playing hooky later.

The usual stuff, preparing documents, at which point I see more new problems appearing instead of making the old ones disappear. Oh bugger.

Cme twelve, my brain is now scrambled, and I bin it for the day, as I ponder what it all means. Trouble is what it means one suspects.

I take myself and cameras to Park Gate where I am to meet a fellow orchidist to show him the Musk Orchids as I wasn't sure that my directions would suffice. But I dd not realise to the extent that the crowds of orchidists and photographers would flatten the ground around the tiny spikes. 2m all around was flat and now devoid of the small spikes of Fragrant and Common Spotted spikes I had seen on previous visits. Yes, they had managed to snap the two tiny spikes, at the cost of dozens of other orchids.

I was, and still am, appalled. How could people who proclaim to love orchids be so careless? This is not the first time we have seen this, and now serious though must be given to what to do with sites and information in the future.

Time was getting on, and I had to get to Hythe for two, to meet Jools coming out of work, and deal with Hythe's notorious one way system.

We do our appointment in Hythe, and then what to do with the afternoon? Well, there's this orchid, I says.....

Always an orchid.

A photograph, a tweet, of an unusual Bee orchid over the border in Sussex, and with us being half way to Sussex, that's where we were heading. Taking to coast road out of Hythe, beside the miniature Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, through Dymchurch, Romney before striking out over the Romney Marsh towards Rye and the Sussex border.

The Marsh is as close as it can be to Norfolk without being in Norfolk, millions of years of deposition by the sea created a low lying marshy area, perfect for breeding hardy sheep, so this is the Romney Marsh.

The road ploughs right across it, passing by some small picturesque villages most with wonderful churches, each worth a visit, until passing round a 90 degree bend we find ourselves in Sussex, and approaching Rye.

Rye sits on an outcrop, overlooking the nearly silted-up harbour and the marsh back into Kent. The road weaves between the foot of the rock and the meandering river until it crosses via a bridge then doubles back along the opposite shore. Traffic is a nightmare, as it often is.

We take a quiet road to the sea, park up, then set out to look for the orchids.

I have some vague directions, which has me peering over the top of a bank, as a high tide earlier that week and left saltwater meadows where the path used to be. I can see Bee Orchid spikes, but none white. In fact I was expecting just the one.

Jools leaves me to ponder my next move, and walks off. I move to the side of the bank, and using the long lens scour the bank for signs of white sepals, tricky where there are hundreds of oxeye daisies mixed in too.

I am about to walk on the virgin bank, when Jools comes back. What exactly are you looking for she asks. I explain the white sepals. Oh, she says, there, dozens just along there. Pointing to the path she had just walked along.

I never doubt Jools as she has great orchid-finding eyes, so we walk down, and after five minutes I see the familiar shape of Bee Orchid spikes, but these are the likes I have not seen before. There must have been 50 or more spikes, and all of them with white sepals and pale green lips. Some of the sepals might have been called lilac, but still so different from what I usually see in Kent.

There were also on the other side of the path, out of the breeze, so easier to photograph, and close enough to the path to get close ups. Close up they look incredible, with the same patternation as expected, but just without the colour.

In the breeze, there was only so much could be done, so we walk back to the car and drive back to a small ice cream cabin, where we get huge waffle cones of ice cream goodness.

I am buzzed by what we have seen, that we actually found what we came looking for, and that Jools found them, as is often the case.

To get back home would mean avoiding the new roadworks in Ashford, where they are replacing J10 with an even bigger roundabout, and the motorway is down to just two lanes, so some creative route finding was needed, eventually going through Lympne, which is pronounced Lim (of course), then onto the A20, to the motorway and home. We passed though some interesting places, worth investigating another day, but that means having to find them again.

Back home we feed the cats and I cook dinner, so be ready for the next game in the World Cup, Spain v Portugal, which was worth watching, as it ended 3-3, but kicked off at seven meaning I missed the first 20 minutes. Still a great game.

I finish the day, on the patio in my dressing gown, finishing off the last of the Tastival that Jools and Tony bought from me on Skye last year.

Cheers, guys.