Sunday 20th June 2021

We wait through the working week for the weekend to arrive so we can go out and do the things we want to do, rather than the things we have to do. Hope that makes sense. And for me, doing what I want, at this point in the year, means orchids.

Churchcrawling on Sundays is hit and miss, as most will have services in the mornings, and from the experiences of others, something like only 50% of churches are open outside services. MAny are open just one or two days or just afternoons a week. I am hopeful that churches will fully reopen once again, but some won't, clearly. Maybe many won't. I hope to return to crawling in July or August once the final unlocking happens.

But for now, orchids.

And for orchids, that means having sunshine. Marsh/Spotted orchids need sunshine to take shots of, either that or messing round with colour balanace. Even then its hit or miss. So, the BBC said that the clouds would break at lunchtime, giving me a few hours to rush to one or two sites to do some orchid snapping.

Which meant that for a change, a slow start, a lazy two course breakfast of fruit followed by croissants, both courses with a fresh coffee.

Perfect.

At half nine, sunshine poked through the clouds, and so it was a scramble to get dressed and ready for the blast to Thanet to two orchid sites.

Just beyond Sandwich, next the old power station site is a small reserve where Common Spotted and Southern March orchids interbreed and creat fabulous hybrids.Every year the display is different, sometimes with more of the parents, mostly with more hybrids. I gave up long ago trying to identify which was which, or what was what, just happy in seeing the brightly colours, bodly marked orchid spikes sticking up from the long vegetration.

Normally, such visits are soundtracked by a cuckoo, but not this year, just silence, of the sound of club hitting ball from Stonelees nearby. There is also the hazard of beingm not attacked, but approached by over-enthuisastic dogs, having been let off the lead by their owners. It happened to Jools yesterday, not attacked, but in the dog's eagarness to say hello, her leg was scratched and no word of appology from the owners who seemed to want to ignore the event.

That aside, it was a great visit, just an hour exploring the main paths and lesser used ones crossing meadows and marshes. My feet got soaked, as did the lower half of my trousers. But nothing could dampen my joy at being among hundreds of orchids.

Somewhere in the site are two Lizard spikes. I failed to find them, but seed is spreading along the coast from Sandwich Bay, and will make it all the way onto thanet soon. We did find several wild aparagus plants, and sampled a couple of shoots just to make sure. Nothing like fresh asaragus. We left the plant with many more shoots so it will produce more plants in years to come.

Then it was up to the old Hoverport to look for Bee Orchids. Running the orchid group I see shots from location descriptions I know, so I knew some had shown this year, but would it rival the dozens there used to be here at their peak?

No.

But, after walking down the unpromising steps to the former port, it opens out and once explored you get to know where to go to find stuff, like orchids. Jools found another colony of the Yellow Man Orchids, I found two new small groups of Suthern Marsh, and in a quiet corner I found 14 Bee Orchid spikes, now going to seed and browing over quickly.

As the Viking Cafe wasn't open with skip bacon butties and/or ice cream, walk back to the car and drive home. I say walk, my feet were so wet they squelshed.

So it goes.

Back home it was lunchtime, so we have ham rolls and brews, then a mixture of writing and gardening until half three when Jols went to the pool to do 20 lengths, and I stayed home and prepared dinner: chorizo hash, and kept an eye on the Wales v Italy game.

Wales lost 1-0, but their better record over the three games, goal difference, meant they finished second and not Swtzerland, so Wales are in the group stages.

We have dinner, and ten comes the tasks that mean the weekend is coming to a close; Jools making her lunches for the week, and me doing #Wildflowerhour at eight and listening to the weekely A Word in Your Ear podcast.

Weekend, all gone.