Friday 12th April 2019

Second no Brexit day of the year......

And, ladies and gentlemen, we have made it to the weekend. Almost.

We just to get through Friday.

What kept me going was the thought of seeing my second orchid species in the afternoon.

Before then I would have to fight the twin evils of incompetence and ignorance. But I have my sword of truth, and start swinging from early on, through IT failures too.

I have fruit for breakfast as I try to enter my working hours, then there are the usual, or unusual meetings.

It is hard going, I am on the verge of a migraine too. Just clinging on.

Lunch comes and goes, and with the stresses of the week done, my colleagues on Denmark begin to leave for the weekend.

I decide to join them.

I am drinking a coffee when Jools comes back at ten to three, watching a documentary on the photographing of the black hole that was announced this week.

Right: orchid time.

We drive out through town and up the A20, turning off towards Samphire Hoe.

The Hoe was created out of the spoil from the Channel Tunnel, and quickly became home to the largest colony of Early Spider Orchids in the country, no explanation as to why.

We walk up the path beside the railway and I find three or four flowering spikes. I snap those. Each year I feel amazed that these exotic looking plants from in the short grass of the Hoe and on the downs around Dover. You could miss them, many do, but they thrive, and in warm years can grow over 1m tall and have over a dozen flowers.

But this time of the season, a single flowering spike is good enough.

We walk along the sea wall, but it is cold in the north wind, cold enough to wish we had put on an extra layer of clothes.

I snap the cliffs and then back to the car and from there, through the town to Tesco. As tomorrow morning I have a train to catch.

So, we rush round getting a trolley full of stuff, well, three bags, not all full, but that is all we need for a week now.

And to home for dinner; marinated beef strips, fresh asparagus, and for me, fried boiled potatoes and frit saus. Lovely.

And that is it again. Jools spend the evening pricking out seedlings, then we watch Monty, and another day has slipped away.