Friday 6th March 2026

started to come down with a cold on Tuesday. Just a sore throat at first, but then a slightly bocked nose. Got worse on Wednesday, and then on Thursday I had a very runny nose, sneezing and an annoying cough.

Although no one else seemed to notice.

Anyway, Thursday night I woke at half midnight, wide awake, and not really able to breathe. I laid in bed listening to Jools sleeping as the hours crawled by. One, two, three, four. Until, at about half four I did drop off.

I woke at half seven, and I had already given thought to not going out with the tour, as I did not want to pass the germs around, and it was a heavy walking day, I would only slow the group down, and I really didn’t fancy walking 16,000 plus steps. So at breakfast I told Richard I was bailing, and he was understanding.

So instead of woolfing down breakfast, I had a slow meal, looking a the coastal scene over my shoulder, munching away.

Jools went out, and I retired to the room where I listened to podcasts, and spent the day in the dark so to ward off a migraine.

Jools returned at one, and so after lunch, we went out, guided by directions to a rare species of orchid, growing on a dusty hillside about a ten minute drive from the hotel.

We drove down a dusty track to a trailhead, then powered up the sat nav for the half mile along a track, and then looking in the undergrowth for a different Ophrys species from the half dozen we found.

I felt like shit still, but being outside soon made me feel better. The air was full of the sound of calling Cyprus warblers, males looking for a mate, and as I climbed the rise to where the orchids were, the landscape to the right fell away giving grand views down to the coast.

Ophrys species can look similar, so after a few false calls, I narrowed down the area to a small clearing north of the track.

I found one plant after an hour. A small single spike with a single flower, but with more buds, as for Ophrys aphrodite, the season was yet young.

Then walk back the half mile, uphill, to the car, and down the hill to the beach where we allowed ourselves to have an ice cream and coffee sitting on the beach. The tours van pulled up, and our friends joined us in ice cream as the sun sank and the warm temperatures dived.