Sunday 12th May 2024

For most football fans, the season is over. Last weekend saw the 46th and final round of games, and that should have been that.

Only, there is the play offs for the lucky few.

The top two in the Championship, Leicester and Ipswich, go up straight away, but the next four play each other, or 3rd play 6th and 4th play 5th, home and away, and the two winners then play for the honour of being next season's whipping boys in the Prem.

There is some cash involved, but then there always is.

Which meant that Norwich were playing Leeds. Again. And WBA were playing Southampton. Again. And Norwich were first up, kicking off at midday against Leeds.

So, we would have to be out and back before kick off some I could be home for the 90 minutes of torture.

It was another glorious spring day, no wind, no cloud and lots of warm, may hot sunshine. So we would go to the shade of an ancient beech wood.

We have breakfast and two coffees and are out by half eight, hopefully before most of the cyclists and others.

Not much to tell of our trip to Kingston and then into the woods, just arriving at the crossroads just a group of cyclists moved on, so we could park.

Then over the road and up the path into the wood, up for 5 minutes, before striking out into the wood proper, the green canopy stretching ahead and both sides.

One of our favourite places in all of Kent is a wood near to Barham.

A decade ago there were hundreds of Lady and thousands of Twayblades, but mismanagement and invasive growth is slowly killing off the orchids here.

I think we found a mere twenty spikes of Lady, and maybe a couple of hundred Twayblade, and no Fly at all. Ramsons are spreading from the road, and will soon cover the ground be the death knell for the orchids.

The very last orchid I found was this pure white Lady, even the stem and hoods were green, as a pure var. alba should be.

It was 23 degrees by half ten, so we called in at the village shop on the way home for an ice cream.

We sat on a bench and ate the ice creams, by our reckoning, the 4th ice cream of the weekend. Probably too many, but refreshing.

One last call, and that was back to Lydden for a revisit to the Man Orchid colony.

And once parked near two lorries, and clambering over the style, we found where once was barely 50 spikes a decade or so back, number now several thousand, with the colony spreading and spreading.

I took some shots, and happy with that, but also disappointed there had been no butterflies, we went back to the car and home, getting back at half eleven, just time for a brew before kick off.

It was never going to be enjoyable, in truth, and in reality it was a match between two teams who did not want to lose, so one shot on goal, and a dull as ditchwater 0-0 draw, but there is a second leg on Thursday. At Leeds.

Then came the second game, WBA v Saints, and that too ended 0-0, but was a much better game. Arsenal then played Man Utd, and there was a least a goal in this game, as Arse won 1-0.

There was even time for a 4th game, Bayer Leverkusen going 50 matches now unbeaten, winning 5-0 at Bochum.

And that was the weekend. All over once again.