Friday 12th April 2024

After work on Friday, I went out searching for two orchid species along the coast.

One I knew, the Early Spiders at Kingsdown, but the other, Green-wing along the coast, I did not.

I had seen shots of the green wing, and thanks to background detail, I knew roughly where to look, but I failed to find them.

I drove to the beach, more overgrown than I remember, but I found three tiny Early Spider spikes in flower, this one being the best.

Species #4 for the season!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Friday, and last day working from home for ten days, as next week I'm on my travels with work. So, I make the most of it.

Jools is off to yoga first thing, leaving me to put out the bins, including the new brown bin which replaced sacks, so not so many trips up and down the drive.

And then to work, where talk is of next week and our team event. Odd to think that I'll be meeting colleagues I've been working beside for over three years and have never met.

Last thing is a meeting regarding an audit report, in which I had suggested that things were not as they should be, I just thought the guy I was speaking to just didn't know. As we delved into the maze of documentations, it became clear that things were really not as they should be.

Chalk that one up to the auditor!

At two I am done for the week, set the out of office message, and as Jools was not yet back, but there was a car in the drive, I went out to look for some orchids.

I had heard about a new, but small, colony of Green-winged had been found just up the coast. I had seen a shot of them, so thought I could triangulate with the image seared into my mind.

I was wrong.

But Walmer and Deal were rammed, I got the last parking space and investigated the grassy slope, saw lots of what look like a cranesbill, and thousands of Alexanders, but no orchids.

Oh well, there's always the golf course.

But that for another day, so I drove back to Kingsdown, parked and made my way onto the SSSI.

At first I thought it too overgrown, but soon I saw rosettes of plants, and then the tell-tale spike of an Ophrys. Looking at the other side of it, I was rewarded with the familiar burgundy red lip and blue patterns of an Early Spider.

I took shots, then looked for others, finding two more just coming into flower, but that was it.

I walked back to the car, then drove up through the narrow street through the village, up to Ringwould and then back home.

It was four in the afternoon and the weekend had begun!

I decided I would like to sit in the garden, and also have a beer. So I had a beer on the patio, sipping a new tripel as the recently arrived swallows chirped and swooped in the gardens, searching for bugs.

It would have been tempting to go out for dinner, but I made chorizo hash, which is always a winner, and while we ate, we relistened to Ronnie O'Sullivan on DID. Always illuminating.

I tried to stay up to watch the Leicester game, but at half time I was so tired, I gave up. Didn't change the result, The Foxes lost again.