Saturday 23rd May 2020

Dad's birthday. He celebrated his last birthday 25 years ago. Scary stuff.

He celebrated it in Germany, coming to visit me, soon after my first marriage failed. We had a week of travelling by car and train out and about, each day he would have coffee and a slice of cheesecake in the afternoon. He was happy.

Didn't take much to make him happy, really. Eleven months later, he was gone.

Anyway, what with his birthday Saturday, 2nd Mrs Jelltex's on Monday and Mum's on Wednesday, much to think over.

But not too hard.

Anyway. Day 3 of the 5 day weekend.

And Cup Final weekend. (postponed)

And there are always orchids. Though to be honest, I have "caught up" after the lockdown induced slow start, and with five days, I could space trips out accross the five days, and with it being windy on Saturday, an early start was needed.

We have coffee, and are ready to go out. But first I check the pond and find the exoskeleton of another damselfly that had hatched over night.

I take a shot.

Two calls planned, Temple Ewell and Lydden, to see Man Orchids and hunt for the Burnt which I knew, deep down, was a no-show this year. But a walk is never wasted.

We drive to Whitfield, down the hill then along to the old George and Dragon, parking up behind, with the walk up the down ahead of us.

It was bright, breezy and cool. Meaning few butterflies would be about. And if I am honest, it was for butterflies I was really looking for, as two "blue" species were on the wing now, Common Blue and Adonis, and I wanted some shots.

But before orchids and butterflies, there is the climb. Up the steps and through the wood first to the meadow, then up though the trees to the end of the tree line. At which point the vista opens out, and ahead the path goes up and up.

This is the first stop to pretend to get out the camera for a shot. I do this several times, but all in all, I think I do OK, across the first meadow, through the swing gate then up the second meadow.

Now the village was way below, and trains rattled along on the tracks to and from Canterbury, mostly hidden by trees.

Once through the second gate, going is easier up a more gentle slope, a cattle track which leads found a scar in the hillside. One final slope leads to the highest point, but from there is is pretty much downhill all the way into Lydden. But of course, each step downwards means climbing back up later.

I see a figure in the distance near to where there is a colony of Early Spiders. I wonder if it is Francesca, (a member of my orchid group, and someone we have taken round a few sites in the last two years.)

I get closer and see the leather jacket, hat pulled down by blue/grey hair is a giveaway. Its her.

I call out and she waves back.

Did I know where the Early Spiders were? Yes, but we're probably too late for them.

We look anyway.

I find no spikes, but there are other places on the down. But, onto the Burnt (Tip) site, and despite looking and looking we find no sign. I think that had there been any, we would have seen them and others would have posted shots online.

We turn for the car.

Francesca says she would like to visit one of the Late Spider locations, she only knows of the Wye one; we could take you if you don't mind riding in our car? I should mention she is a carer for her aged Mother, so it wasn't a given she'd accept. But she did.

So, instead of going through Lydden to look for the Man Orchids, we were heading to Folkestone for some Late Spider action. I hadn't planned to, but who can resist the charm of a fat LSO or two?

Not me.

We walked back up the down, stopping at a gate and looking down from there against the fence for the colony of Early Spiders I knew were there, and in the end we find two dried out spikes.

Too late. This year, sadly.

So we walk back down to the car, decide there isn't time to go to Lydden, so drive along the Alkham Valley to Folkestone. At least the Late Spiders are in a very easily accessible place, near to the path, so after parking, we walk up the hill and find the area dotted with orchids. Almost all Late Spiders, though there was a small handful of Man Orchids too.

I snap them all, and right at the end, I find two spikes growing next to each other, almost twins. They make a fine picture, so I call Francesca over so she could snap them.

But her time was over, we had to get her back to Dover Priory for ten, so she could get back home to her Mother.

Back along the A20 and into Dover, getting her to the station with ten minutes to spare.

And for us, back home for coffee and late, late breakfast, quickly followed by early lunch, so it was pretty much one big meal. Lunch was pizza, I am getting there, so each one is better than before. But it turns out forgetting to put cornmeal on the red hot stone causes the pizza to stick in a nanosecond.

Buggerbuggerbugger.

I scrape it off, re-roll the dough out, sprinkle with polenta and try again. Lifting the dough and placing it on the stone makes it apprear to have more holes than a SPAD's defence for going to Durham. But, I do it, slap on toppings and cheese, and put it in the oven.

Ten minutes later, beer and cider is poured, and the pizza looks OK. If you close your eyes. But tastes great.

We eat it all up.

Now, that takes us to about two in the afternoon.

We did have cheesecake at some point, but apart from that, not sure what we did all day. Not a lot, I suspect.

We didn't play Uckers, as I was glued to Twitter as the chaos unfolded.

I did make bacon butties for supper, which went down a treat.

And that was that, another day, all gone.

Two more days to go, and lots of orchids to see.