Saturday 14th July 2018

And what seems the three hundredth consecutive day of endless sunshine.

Also, penultimate game of the World Cup.

Yes, it is high summer, and this is already shaping up to be so similar to the long hot summers of 2003 and 1976. The rain that was forecasted for next week has already melted away, but there is a chance of rain next Friday.

But for the weekend, long hot, sunny, windless days. And ice cream. Lots of ice cream.

I had orchids on my mind, which is no real surprise, but we are coming to the end of the season, with only two more species left to open. But I did know that the Broad Leaved Helleborines were open, and when I popped in on Tuesday to see them, the weather was so dull, the pictures came out so poorly, so best we go again so I can retake the shots.

We went to Tesco, went a little crazy as we had a coupon for triple points, we bought whisky, wine, cider as well as the rest of the stuff we needed.

We go back home, and while Jools put shopping away, I made more coffee and warmed up the croissants, and in no time we were all ready to go.

It is a pleasant run up to Maidstone, up the motorway through the roadworks at Ashford, all with the soundtrack of Huey on the radio.

We arrive at the site just after half ten, we walk to the bridleway entrance and take the upper path to the meadow. Along the path there were a few Helleborines, slowly unfurling. Once we had crossed into the meadow, we were dazzled by the range of wild flowers, two kinds of willowheb, a couple of St John's Wort along with the usual chalk downland plants.

I follow the narrow path round, and scattered around a mature tree were the first of the BLHs. Dark ones, light ones, dense flowered ones and lightly flowered ones.

I take a few shots, but really it is about the impact so many flowering spikes has on the senses, especially when you see in the undergrowth, yet more spikes, getting ready to open, or in their full glory. Beyond a line of threes, a small group of spikes so dark, they look like chocolate, I saw them earlier in the week, so I wanted to get close to snap them.

In truth there is only so many shots you can take. I know I could have filled a memory card with shots, but they would be the same, and I have taken, largely, the same shots for 6 years now. I am looking for the aberrations, the pale, the dark the odd shaped. I saw none, so we left, down the path, but a flash of orange caught my eye; a fritillary butterfly.

We chased it for ten minutes, I even got a shot from distance, but noting I could use.

We walk back to the car and drive up the hill to Stockbury, where I knew there is a large colony of Ivy Broomrape, which is a parasitic plant that leeches off the roots of others. Its a big family, and as you may have guessed, these feed off ivy.

Along the lane there were dozens of spikes, and were spreading too.

I get many shots, even though many were turning brown in the sun and warm weather, a few were still looking closely at.

Down the hill on the outskirts of Maidstone there is a garden centre, and we go in as we want to order Jools' sister a garden parasol for her garden; we look and the one we like was £350. We have expensive tastes. We leave it.

We drive back home via the quiet lanes and come across a pub which was nice and empty, as the one we were going to, just down the lane, had a folk festival on, and half of Kent were there, or the other half that were not at Leeds Castle for the classic music show and fireworks.

We both have a ploughmans lunch, with proper crusty bread, pickles, cheese, ham, salad, more pickles.

After that we take a plazy drive back home, through Faversham and onto the A2, past Canterbury to home, I had somehow miscalculated and missed the first 20 minutes of the England v Belgium 3rd place play-off game. England were already 1-0, and played poorly th

e rest fo the 1st half. They improved in the 2nd, but without really threatening. Belgium score again in the final ten minutes to leave England in 4th. Still an amazing result for England, but still felt disappointing. We have dinner; more tapas because we're sophisticated, then watch more Scandic noir as the final season of The Bridge draws to a close.

And that is it, another full day, all hot and bothered. but happy.