Wednesday 28th April 2021

First of two days off work for medical appointments.

Private medical insurance is included in my job, and has been for the last 11 years, and yet this is only the second time I have had to use it and even now I did it so not to use the over-stessed NHS. If my insurance can pay, then why not? I could have waited for an NHS appointment, and the treatment would have been just as good. And free.

So, I asked my doctor to refer me to the private hospital in Canterbury and I was to make an appointment with the doctor so I could have an MRI scan on my shoulder.

THe appointment was at 11, but to get there I needed a car and Jools needed a car to go to work. I guess we could have managed using just ours, but for eighty quid, JOols hired a tiny Japanese hatchback, and I was to drop her off at the only car hire place in town, as COVID has killed all the others off, probably never to return.

So, at quarter to eight, I dropped Jools off on Townwall Street, she siad I could drive off and she would call me if there was problems. Se had left her mobile at home, but there were no problems.

I came back as the roofers were due to start replacing our tiles. I had received a call on Monday, so I was expecting them.

By half eight there was no sign, so I left the house, they guy said they didn't need to get in the house, as I was expecting it to be pretty much done when I returned in the afternoon.

I had an hour to kill, so drove to Samphire Hoe to check on the ESOs, but not the ones that most go to look at, there is a small colony tucked away in a quet corner, where a microclimate brings them into bloom earlier and can get bigger plants, just like in the south of France.

Anyway.

I drove down the tunnel to the reserve, parking up I heard a photographer talking to a warden. She asked him if he had found any orchids, he replied only four. I chirpped up, I know a place where there could be more, if you have time.

He said he would come once he had paid for more parking.

We walked along the sea wall, passing the worm-danglers who were having a right laugh, generally not working and enjoying the glorious weather.

At the end of the sea wall, we step down oto a narrow path, and begin to look at the soil that had falled from the top of the cliff and created steep ground, ideal for orchids, apparently.

A quick look and I see the first spike, and just further along we found a good ten, and looking up there was another 14 out of reach except to the longest of lenses.

I bid Trevor goodbye, and begin to walk back, but I had a hunch, and looking at an area of rocks that had fallen, I had seen a spike there many years ago, maybe there would be some?

There was a good two dozen, with many more emerging, some with two or three flowers on a spike. They were glorious, especially one little stunner that had a lip of unusual colours, and the new lens made it big enough to fill the viewfinder.

I took a few others, called to Trevor who came over, to take some snaps too.

I walk back to the car, then drive to the entrance to the tunel to wait for the lights to allow me to drive up, its single track.

Canterbury is a fine city, not as good as Norwich clearly, but has one cathedral, timber framed houses, cobbled streets, and most main roads in Kent converge there. It is a medieval in the 21st century, and the traffic jams are legendary. I had to allow 90 minutes to get there just for the traffic on the ring road, which was grim even during a pandemic.

I inched round to the turn off, then have to find a parking space, for which I have to pay two quid an hour for. So, I drive round the car park until fid a space, I reverse in and have half an hour to wait. I could only go inside 5 minutes before the appointment.

So, I waited.

Time to go in, there was an automatic temperature checking device, I was fine I had forms to fill in and then some more waiting.

I was shown into see the very nice consultant. He'd better be nice the appointment was costing two hundred quid. But my wonderful doctor had failed to send a referral, so instead of being scanned, I had to tell the doctor what was wrong, my medical history (again) and then he had to see where it hurt, so for half an hour I moved my arm this way and that.

He agreed I needed an MRI and an x-ray too, but there were no appointments that day, so I would have to come back another day.

Sigh.

It was half two, just time to go for a walk as I had been either driving or sitting in waiting rooms for four hours, so I went to Yocklett's, which was a short cut and a twenty minute drive down Stone Street away.

"My" parking space was free, so I reversed in, and grabbed my camera and ring flash, and set off.

There were Common Twayblades coming up everywhere, and bluebells in flower as far as the eye could see.

BUt it was cloudy, and cool, so no butterflies to be seen at either meadow. And I found no Fly Orchid in flower either, so walked to the other side fo the Gogway and up the steep path, checking for Lady and Greater Butterfly, and none were out in the wood, of course.

But at the top of the path, in the meadow, a single Lady spike had a single flower open. NOt much, but it counts! I snap it loads of time, of course.

Futher on the bluebell meadow, there were the occasional EPO spike to break up the blueness, then down the steep path to the clearing that had been made two years ago, and there I found a COmmon Twayblade with two open flowers. That counts too!

I snap that too.

I walk slowly along the lower path, through deep grass, but find no butterflies on the wing or roosting, nor any Fly in flower either.

I was certain there would be one in flower. Certain.

I walk back towards the car, but stop at the fallen tree where the thickest colony of Fly spikes, I check every one, and as I looked at the last one, I see magenta/purple.

YES!

So I get shots, and under the shadow of a thicket, there wasn't umuch colour, but the results show what the new lens and ring flash can achieve.

Happy with that, I walk back to the car, then drive back up the hill to Stone Street and then down towards Hythe and the motorway, then back home, getting back at half four, just time to feed the cats then prepare lunch, which was chicken kiev salad.

Lots of chopping of onions, tomatoes and other salady delights, putting the chicken in the oven at twenty past five, so it would be ready for when Jools came home.

Still no booze for me, and if I'm honest, I fine with it. Happy to be able to sleep and go out, orchiding.

The evening was spent reviewing the shots I took, writing and eating the remaining choc-pot that Jools made the night before. I mean we had one each, and coffee, so I wasn't greedy, oh no.