Friday 10th May 2019

Dateline: Esbjerg. Time to go home.

I was awake at five, if not before. I wish I could sleep, but the beer was talking.

Anyway, I lay in bed, listen to the sound of the laundry truck reversing, unloading then drive off, and I think its time I should make moves.

So, I leap up, ha!, get dressed, pack and go down to check out.

After loading the car, I take the usual road out of town, onto the motorway and out past the airport before taking the road north to Billund.

I must have travelled this road two hundred times, so I know every sight, every bend and hill. I also know if I rush, I will be at the airport too early, so have to queue at security, so I settle at the end of a line of cars travelling just under the speed limit and enjoy the drive.

I park the car, walk to the terminal to find the usual infrequent travellers unsure what to do. I will see their ilk getting their carry on bags checked the other side of security as I am waved through. Its not hard to read instructions as to what can and cannot be carried.

Anyway.

I am through security in ten minutes, through the duty free shop and find a place to sit and work from. Nothing much on, so I wander round the duty free shop once numbers of those wandering about are reduced as budget flights have departed.

I walk to the gate, to find it full. Usually is on Mondays and Fridays. But when I say full, I mean there's 30 people on it.

Rammed.

Anyway, we board, I am last on, so sink into my usual seat, 8A, and close my eyes as the plane is readied for take off. I can read the rest of my magazine once we are in the air, and through the thick layer of clouds.

Holland is covered in clouds, as is the North Sea, but I see glimpses of the Kent coast through the clouds as we drop onto final.

Home, if only for two days.

Along the Thames though most of it is hidden under the clouds, one last pass over the river and down onto the runway.

Safe.

We have to wait for ten minutes for a bus to pick us up, but that means that our bags will be waiting. The delay means I have missed the earlier flight, so I dawdle and am last off the plane, walk down to immigration, collect my bag and walk to the DLR station where I wait two minutes for the next train to Stratford, arriving there 16 minutes after the train had left, meaning I had 44 minutes to kill.

So I wander round the shopping centre, and find an art shop that has some good stuff, I might come back to buy something next time I am passing through if Jools says its OK.

The mall stretches as far as the eye can see, all sparkling glass and gleaming chrome, and hardly any shoppers.

I give up and walk back to the station and go down to the platform to see the trains thunder by.

As its not a school holiday, there are loads of free seats, so I can sit on my preferred side ad facing the direction of travel.

Perfect.

At Dover I flag a cab down, and he whisks me up Jubilee Way to St Maggies. The sun is shining and it is nearly warm. Lovely.

I cook flatbreads for lunch, sit outside on the patio to eat them, fill up with bridfeeders, and generally act like there isn't an overflowing inbox to deal with.

In time I do look, ping a few mails off, by which time it was three, Jools was back, and we had an appointment with a friend of hers. Or she did.

I just dropped her off in Lydden, then went off on a quick orchid hunt.

First of all, up the hill to check in on the man Orchids. There were further on, but still not fully open, another week then.

From there to Yockletts, as a friend had posted a shot of the green Fly, and I knew just where it was.

Up the familiar roads to Stone Street, then down the lanes to the parking space, only to find someone there.

So, I park at the bottom of the hill and walk up, looking at the large variety of flowers in the grass bank, and the thunderclouds overhead I hope I don't get caught in if they drop a sharp shower.

Into the reserve, and I take the hidden track to the clearing, and among a few other regular Fly, is the single Green one.

It looks like an alien.

I was so determined to get a good shot, I had lugged my two ton tripod up the hill, and now had to remember how to take the post out, invert it, so to take low level shots.

That done, I power up the ring flash, and click, flash.

And repeat.

That done, and with the day brightening up by the minute, I walk back down to the car and then drive along the valley to a meadow I had been told of last year, where the farmer is letting the wild flowers return, where there is a colony of Green Wing Orchids mixed in with the EPOs.

I park the car and clamber up the down, finding a few stumpy GOW, but further up a couple of decent sized spikes.

I walk back down to the car, turn round and drive back to Lydden to pick up Jools, and was bang on time.

Not a bad day all in all, but I was flagging.

That night we listened to some radio, then watched Monty back on GW, and then to bed.

Phew.