Sunday 6th August 2023

A friend contacted me two weeks ago regarding a spike he had been watching, in that he believed it to be of a Violet Helleborine that lacked any colouring. And last week it began to flower, showing the pale, colourless flowers and green stem. As a plant it looks incredible, and easily mistake for a BLH but the leaves are the wrong shape, of course.

So, plans were made to meet on Sunday.

In the meantime, a friend the other side of the country mailed me to let me know the plant's location as he had heard from another friend.

Nothing much stays a secret in the orchid world.

We were to meet up, the walk the short path to the orchids, and for me, not that much of a drive.

I left at eight so to be in time, and now that Jubilee Way was open again after the fuel spill on Friday, going was easy.

Up the motorway before turning off, going up, ever-narrower lanes until I came to a layby where Ian was waiting, so we chatted while we waited for Terry to arrive.

It was Terry that found the plant and would lead us there.

Across a clearing and into the wood, and away from any other orchids was the triple spike of a Violet Helleborine without colour.

There is a named variant that lacks chlorophyll called var. rosa, but is lacking in pigmentation. Many plants have this too, many orchids too.

We took shots with and without lights, some came out better than others. And that was that, half an hour done and we were done.

My plan had been to head back to Barham to look at the Violet Helleborines there, I just had to find my way back to the motorway.

I retraced my steps back to the motorway, or the roundabout before it, and saw on the sign the way to the tunnel. It did say Dartford, but I just saw tunnel, must have told myself it was the Channel Tunnel, only when back on the motorway I realised I was heading in the wrong direction, and the distance to the Dartford Tunnel was just over 20 miles.

Sigh.

I got off at the next junction, and all I had to do was go round the roundabout, all the way round, and then be right.

But there was traffic, and roadworks, and a two minute trip round it took half an hour, even then I had to drive on the verge to make it to the on ramp.

My second mistake was thinking I knew the way to Barham the back road way from Stone Street. Once off Stne Street there is a maze of lanes going up and down downs, through woods and past isolated farms. They all look the same.

I ended up driving along a lane so little uses the grass either side of the tyre tracks was six inches high. The road less travelled indeed.

I got to Kingston at half eleven, clouds were rolling in and my heart wasn't in it, so I went home, out onto the A2, then down through Coldred and Langdon to St Maggies.

Lunch was burgers. And beer.

So when the afternoon came I could watch football. Three games back to back, though I slept through most of Leeds v Cardiff. Sunderland v Ipswich ended in an away win, as Town really grew into the game and won 2-1.