Friday 24th August 2018

Friday.

4 months to Christmas Eve.

Seriously.

I had a blood test booked at the doctor's for half nine, and so I thought I might take the opportunity to have a long walk before going for the test, asking Jools to drop me off at the Monument, so I could walk to Kingsdown to check on the colony of orchids there. You will be glad to hear the orchid season is now coming to an end.

We have coffee, I get dressed while Jools gets ready for work. All I have with me are my two cameras. All I need.

She drops me off the other side of the meadow, meaning I walk into the sun towards the monument, with the grazing sheep scattering before me. I take my first shot of the day.

Won't be my last.

Around the monument, there are the tiny spikes of the last orchid of the season, Autumn Ladies Tresses, they are showing well now despite the over-zealous mowing by the council who despite assuring me that they would not mow, have continued. Maybe the message has got through, though I doubt it.

My other hope for the walk was to find som Autumn Gentian, a handsome flower by all accounts, but despite me going to investigate any plant looking pink or purple flowered, I find none.

But a walk is never wasted, especially when I have the whole of the cliffs to myself. Below, it is low tide, som the cliffs have dry feet, and from there the sound of feeding birds could be heard. On the other side of the path, the large fields is scattered with hay bales, making a photogenic scene, so I snap that a few times for walking on down towards Kingsdown.

It is amazing how you know the nature of the land you walk through, in that I knew at what point I would see butterflies, and which ones they would be. And sure enough, soon after crossing into Kingsdown, level with the end of the service road, I saw the first of the Adonis Blues basking in the warming sun. This was another bonus for being up so early on a fine morning, cool enough to make sure butterflies were not flighty.

I get close to a couple, but soon I am happy to spot the flashes of blue from a distance. Although there are many species of blues, there is no other species that has such a vivid blue colour, like a drop of tropical ocean dropped onto the clifftops in East Kent.

And even better, I come across a single Small Copper, also basking, but a fresh out of the packet one, with colours for vibrant, it shimmered, and for the fist time noticed that the rear edge of the hind wings each has a small "tail". Amazing.

Further along, I come to my goal, a house which has on its extensive lawns, thousands of spikes of ALTs. I mean thousands. And a couple of years ago, some had started to grow on the grassed area between the house and road, but the owner of the house although letting orchids grown on his lawn, is mowing this area that the public can see to within a fraction of ground level.

Sigh.

So I turn round and start to walk back, back past the basking butterflies, through the gate back into St Margaret's, and up the cliff path, up to the monument, then through the village to the surgery.

It was now getting warm, and as ever, the surgery had the heating on, causing me to melt for the first ten minutes until I got used to it.

Then back out into the sunshine, through the village, then back along to the top of The Dip before dropping down the steep track, through the mud at the bottom to home.

It was just before ten, just as I thought it was. Clever me. And as I walked the final stretch back across the fields, the smart watch on my wrist vibrated, telling me I had already done my 10,000 steps for the day.

I had time to make a brew before delving into work. But, turns out it is Friday everywhere, and things are slow. Slow enough to call it a day at two, and settle down to watch something on TV and wait for Jools to come home.

A year or two ago, when walking through Canterbury, we had noticed a new restaurant called he Korean Cowgirl, and we thought this sounded interesting, so during the week we booked a table for Friday evening, and so at three in the afternoon, we drove into the city for a walk round, see what's new, maybe have a pint and then have dinner out.

Canterbury is a huge tourist draw, and always seems to be thriving, but we saw several empty shops, and one was a store that had sold shoes in the town for over a century, all closed and gone. I guess we saw a half dozen empty shops, but something we have not seen there before. A reaction, we were told later, to sky high business rates. Restaurants and eateries are opening and closing all the time, but shops going, is a worrying new turn.

But the cobbled streets of the city were packed with tourists from all over the globe, all in town to take in the sights around the cathedral.

We walk pat that, and along College Street, past the old King's School shop and to the micropub we knew was there, to have a pint or two, and as it turned out, a game of Trivial Pursuit, or the WH Smith version from the 90s. I won't tell you who won, but I left the pub smiling.

We walked to the restaurant, and found just one other table taken, which made it all the more amazing that they made such a big deal out of reserving a table for two.

Anyway, we order something called the Dirty Cowgirl, a platter with brisket, ribs, wings and Korean coleslaw. It was great. I mean, just the right amount for the two of us, and by the time we finished the place was filling up with bright young things and ladies that dine.

We paid and left, walking back through the Cathedral Precinct, past rows of closed shops to the car, and due to the three beers I had drunk, Jools drove us back, getting us back in time to fall asleep in front of the TV watching Monty. As it should be.