Friday 2nd August 2019

Jools and I are now of the age when there is a constant risk of friends passing away.

Uncle John has a funeral suit. I suspect will soon have on, one way or another.

Neil and Jill were friends of mine before Jools and I met. Neil was an SNCO in the RAF at my last posting, and became a Norwich fan, I discovered today. Anyway, we along with their daughter used to attend home and away games together.

I will address this in the blog for today, but although I like a beer ((I know, I now, huge surprise) it is not the be all and end all for me. Fir some it becomes literally an addiction.

Neil passed away in June, from massive organ failure brought on by years of booze addiction.

Messages about his death and funeral mentioned nothing about Jill; we had drifted apart once I left the RAF.

So, his funeral was set for Saturday, and we decided to overnight as it was a long drive, in the west Midlands.

Jools took the day off, I took the day off, and we had a friend to look after them darned cats.

So, after getting up, breakfast, we set off once rush hour and the dash for the ports was done.

So, once packed and the car loaded, we left orders for the cats they were in charge. As we were travelling up through the county, why not call on some orchids on the way?

Why not?

We went to Barham, and deep in the beech woods, we found two spikes open of last of the shy and retiring Violet Helleborines.

It was dark and gloomy underneath the almost continuous canopy, bust as we made to leave, sun broke through and illuminated on spike in flower making the best VH shot I have taken.

At The Larches, we parked up on the hill, and walked through the wood and out across the meadow, where many spikes we saw three weeks ago had gone to seed, but many more had emerged, and just about enough open and to see to make the trip worthwhile.

I found a pure green spike, with a lip of white turned green. Worth the stopover on its own.

We pressed on, up towards London and through thick traffic round the southern suburbs, through Surrey to Heathrow, then up the M40 past Oxford to our motel, at a nondescript service area, with its own Weatherpersons and budget hotel. We were within half an hour of the funeral.

After resting, we went to Weatherspoons for dinner of something sounding fabulous, but was bland personified.

We went back to our room, lay on the bed and contemplated the day coming in silence.

We went to bed sometime after nine, with the buzz of motorway traffic blotted out by the air conditioning.