Monday 31st August 2020

Bank Holiday Monday.

Yup, another day off work, though there really isn’t that many places to go.

Normally, I would have done some churchcrawling over the weekend, but I hear at least half of churches are still closed.

So we had another quiet weekend. At least with orchids and butterflies, COVID did not stop us chasing those, except in the worse of the lockdown. And with the poor weather of the weekend, there was little point in going to visit a series of closed churches, or nature reserves with butterflies roosting all day and flowers that fail to open under cloudy skies.

But Monday was due to be warmer and brighter, so we should go out, and my friend CDL Creative, aka Steve, posted shots from Dungeness, so I thought we should go back to visit. And with it being quite popular at the worst of times, on a Bank Holiday it would be busy later.

So we left before seven, taking the coast road from Hythe to Dymchurch then to Romney and then onto the Marsh to Lydd. The seaside twons were still sleeping, traffic was light and there was sun breaking through the clouds.

Which was nice.

Dungeness is a large area of gravel, washed out from the chalk cliffs and swept down the coast by tides, and is like a little bit of Norfolk in Kent, marshes and wide gravel beaches. It is also home to two nuclear reactors, and on the private estate, small shacks and wooden houses have been set up, some out of old railway carriages. Some residents are artists, and indeed Derek Jarman lived here.

He's buried at Old Romney church, where I need to go back to, but I heard it was stuck by lightning earlier in the summer and is currently closed.

But Dungeness is always open.

We park at the railway station, I take both cameras; one to snap wildflowers and any butterflies, the other for landscape work. And we set off, wandering towards the new lighthouse, then along the boardwalk to the dunes of gravel marking the start of the actual beach.

I walk a little back from the beach, which was lined with fishermen, some who had slept there in tents, as I was looking for interesting plants. I find little of interest, but some Viper’s Bugloss had been deformed by a gall wasp. I say “some” in fact most had, so the spikes looked all shaggy and overgrown, almost a different species, but the flowers were clearly Bugloss.

I was round to the first of the fishing boats, all of which have to be hauled up onto the beach as there is no harbour. All around the two boats, boxes of nets are stored, apparently unused.

But I have a bunch of shots, which is why I wanted to come, we walk back to the car so we can drive to the next location to look for some lizards.

But I remember there is supposed to be some orchids nearby, around a flagpole, so we drive down the coast road through Greatstone and Littlestone. We stop off at a shop to get some breakfast, and in trying to find a place to eat, we stumble across the flagpole, set on a village green.

Despite being very parched, I find a dozen spikes of ALTs, two nice groups of three were showing well, but I take no shots, I have enough of ALTs, but happy to know they are there.

We drive back along the coast road, now busier, and then to the M20, blasting up to Ashford, then taking the hilly road to Kings Wood through Boughton. It is the end of summer, the trees have yet to turn gold, but light is falling through the canopy at an angle, it feels like it is the last day of August.

I came across a wildlife blog a couple of weeks ago, and a recent post detailed a small colony of Wall Lizards in Ospringe.

Ospringe is a village on the outskirts of Faversham, the church visible from the motorway, I know it well, we just have to find these lizards.

I walk round the churchyard and find none, but I do meet a local who tells me where to look, and as if my magic, the clouds part, the sun shines and it warms up. Jools joins me and her keen eyes spots movement, and it is a “large” male. I say large, four inches with half of that being a tail, but I edge closer, snapping all the time.

On the ground Jools spots a couple of smaller ones are in the short undergrowth at the base of the wall. I snap them both, and am more than happy with that.

We return to the car and head home, back along the A2 to Whitfield where we call in on Jen to see how her Mum is doing.

Bett was being changed by her carers, she is comfortable, and is making some sense, though that can be hard to be certain of as she doesn’t have her teeth in, and her accent is strong.

We stay for an hour, then return home for lunch of more bread and cheese.

We know how to live.

On the TV is more Le Tour, so I retire to the sofa and watch the wonderful French countryside slip by, cycling is almost secondary.

Once that had finished, I cook breaded chicken which we have with salad, including tomatoes from our own garden, and I finish off the last of the red wine.

And that is it, the last holiday weekend of the year done, and back to work in the morning, when it will be September.