Saturday 25th June 2022

FIxmas.

Falkland Island Christmas.

Middle of winter in the southern hempisphere, and in RAF mount Pleasant, there will be parties and much, much drinking.

Probably.

Also, six months to Christmas, which means if your sprouts are not on a rolling boil now, how on earth do you think they'll be ready before the big day?

It turned out that five days of travelling, audits and driving four hours each day, at least, meant I was pooped and really wanted to have a weekend doing stuff against the clock.

I just wanted to do one or two things, and then rest of the time, chill out.

I like to have a plan.

The day before, we had munched our way through 80% of the cheese I had bought in Calais, so the first action was to go to No Name Shop in Deal for a re-supply of stinky French cheese.

We had coffee and some fruit, and were out on the road heading into Deal by half eight. Deal is nice, but being seasidy, can get busy. So, best to get there early, do your stuff and leave ASAP.

We parked in the centre of town, walked along Middle Street, cutting down an alley past the Black Pig butchers, where we ended up buying some oak-smoked back bacon and some lamb kebabs.

Then onto the High Street and along to No Name Shop. We go in and buy three random cheeses, no idea what we were buying, but that's more than half the fun.

We walk back to the car, load up and head out of town towards Sandwich.

I had seen shots of Marsh Helleborines in flower, so being a member of the bservatory this year for the first time, entrance onto the estate would be free.

Once we arrived, I checked that there was no bird ringing taking place, so permission to walk to the meadow, and Jools and I set off across the hay meadow which had just be cut, so there were very few orchids and other wild flower, just at the very edges.

We walked throug to the ringing area, and there were butterflies and dragonflies. Everywhere.

The sheer delight of seeing the air and plants full of butterflies: Peacocks, Small Skipeprs, Large Skippers, Small Tortoiseshells, Meadow Browns, Speckled Woods, Small Coppers, Marbled Whites and Coppers. I took twenty minutes to stalk butterflies and take shots, before we entered the orchid meadow.

At first all I could see were spikes of Southern Marsh, already going over and/or going to seed, but looking closer I saw a large number of Marsh Helleborines, some in flower, but many more to come out.

I took some shots, but not too many as I didn't want to step into the clmps of orchids.

Walking on, there were many more Southern Marsh and a few Dacht x grandis too, the hybrid between SMO and Common Spotted Orchids.

I also saw a single Dainty Dameslfly, but it failed to settle, but good to see this very rare species spreading further from their breeding pools.

We walked back to the car, and then drove home. Job done for the day.

Back home I cook the bacon and put the brown and crispy rashers into one of the French baguettes, which worked very well indeed.

And that was that.

We could have watched Glastonbury, but didn't. Mainly due to the fact that it has wiped our usual favourite schedule on 6 Music.

We had the kebabs for dinner, with beer.

In fact, the kebabs were very good, and I simply served them with some asparagus lightly fried in butter.

Jools got a new tablet delivered, so spent the evening setting it up, and I did other stuff. Whatever I did, it took all evening.

Phew.