Wednesday 20th March 2024

Wednesday.

And Jools was at work, so it was just me and them cats.

And they slept all day.

But outside it was spring.

Warm, sunny and with a light breeze, with only the sound of lawnmowers and coastguard helicopters scouring the sea for those refugees in small boats. It is rather like living in the DMZ at times.

Anyway, other than the noise, the air is filled with the sound of birdsong and the scent of newly emerged flowers. The lawnmeadow is now sprouting too, with the warm sun and recent rain ensuring strong growth.

But I have work to do, but as being up to date and my boss on her travels, it would be a quiet day.

I asked my knee how it felt, and the answer was that maybe we should go for a shuffle, further than the bins.

So, come mid-morning, I put on my walking shoes and grab the camera for a walk just over the fields to Fleet House then back along Collingwood, down Station Road and back home. Less than 3,000 steps, but feeling quite the adventure.

My hope was to see butterflies, especially as Large Tortoiseshells have been seen to two areas of the county, and I have seen one near here in early spring a few years back.

So, along the street and along the track, past huge stalks of Alexanders all being feasted on by flies and some Yellow dung flies. I take shots of the latter, and walk on.

As it has been two months since I last walked, the ground has dried up a lot, very little mud and mostly firm underfoot, though would be wet and muddy down by the farm, near the new bench and down the Dip of course.

No butterflies seen, but I did the mad lady who last year accused me of spying on her and “her” land. I say nothing and she just stares.

Back along Collingwood, snapping flowering plants as I go, and with each step my knee grumbled a little bit louder, but no actual pain. So, I tell it, to the end, check on the Coltsfoot and then home. OK?

OK, said my knee.

Along Collingwood, nearly at the end, the house where a gate post used to stand, and each year a handful of leafless Coltsfoot spikes rise from the grass, this year the numbers had increased, and spread either side of the hedge and down the driveway of next door, to the extent that I counted 124 spikes, most fresh, but some having now begun to fade and go to seed.

I walk to the end of the street, down the hill 25 yards and turn into our street, along and I am home. I felt like Scot of the Antarctic, or having completed a marathon, but with Spring well on its way, I want to be able to get out and do snapping!

For the evening we went to The Swingate for dinner. Or Chef de Mumbai as its now called. I had booked a seat, though booking wasn’t needed as there was only one of other table taken.

Sad for the owner, but the food was excellent and in such amounts we had enough to bring home for dinner on Thursday.

I drove us back, we had been gone an hour and fifteen minutes.

2024 Orchid season (part 1)

On the 18th of February, the first spikes of the Oxon Giant Orchids, Himantoglossum robertianum, were found in flower.

The 2024 UK Orchid season was off and running, even if the first species wasn’t a native species, but rather a naturalised one. Even still, this was some three weeks earlier than 2023 when at the end of March many of us visited the site to see the orchids, would this mean that our native species would be as early?

So it was on the 16th of March, on the Purbeck coast, that the first 11 spikes of Early Spiders were found to be in flower, this was followed two days later by the finding of the same species in flower on the Isle of Wight, and on the 19th March, Green Wing Orchids found flowering in Hampshire.

On the same day, Tad found a spike of Early Purple almost completely in flower in woodlands above the Medway meaning the Kent season is under way too.

I would suggest this is ten to fourteen days earlier than previously known, to have three species flowering in the third week of March is, I believe, unheard of, and marks a new chapter in climate change here in UK.

The first UK dragonfly of the year was spotted yesterday, a Beautiful demoiselle, was photographed having emerged from a garden pond in southern England. And at least eight species of butterfly have been recorded.

In our garden, daffodils are already turning brown after flowering, and tulips sprouting well.

Tuesday 19th March 2024

As Jools has every other day off, we thought we would do something with our time together.

So, for the first such day, we went to the pictures at two to see Dune II.

We were first to enter the auditorium, Jools with a hot dog and me with a cotton sack sized bag of popcorn and a dustbin sized cup of Cola.

Before then there was work.

Jools was off, of course, so she went upstairs to do some more sanding and painting, which I cracked down to battling the forces of sloth.

And drinking tea.

On her way back from the tip having dropped off the old carpet from the back room, she called in to get some warm pasties for lunch.

At twenty past two we drove into town to St James where the cinema is.

Now, and this is the truth, the St James development has been finished for some years, maybe nearly five years but this was my first time visiting Cineworld and its 5 (count 'em) screens.

We were to see Dune II having seen Dune I a couple of weeks back, so best see the sequel while it was still fresh in our minds.

What to make of the film? Well, as someone who has never read the books, it was a bit of a jumble, not as much as the first part, but it looked AMAZING.

It was a good film, but after two and a half hours, it just stopped. As the starships took off for a space battle in space with space lasers.

We came home, fed the cats and had a brew. It was getting dark, and the fox was on the lush asking for food, so I put a bowl out laden with old cat food and a pack of cheap dog food.

It all went.

Monday 18th March 2024

Monday morning looked and felt like Spring.

After a cool and misty start, the skies cleared, and the two Pasqueflowers, all dew-covered and closed soon opened and raised their faces to the sun.

I took shots with them covered in dew, and another series when they opened fully.

I don't think there is a better colour combination in nature than the purple of the petals and deep yellow of the stamens.

The birds are chasing each other round the garden and in the pond there are two more clumps of spawn.

Jools is working three days this week, meaning I am home alone on Monday. So, once she leaves I put on a podcast and listen to that before logging on for another week.

It is a week after I have written my reports, filled in travel expenses, so for the most part its a low stress day, the kind I like.

I have started watching videos of a coin collector, who opens £250 worth of £2 coins to find rare and unusual ones. I now know more about the commemorative ones and whether the Queen or King should or should not have their crown on.

Amazing that people find passion in some things, whilst most don't. Christopher makes a living out of coins, and makes these videos in his spare time. He is witty and engaging.

Holy Toledo.

Other than work, my task for the days is to pull up the Cleavers that grow along the hedge on the west side of the lawnmeadow. They are doing very well this year, so I fill a sack with them and the birds are happy at having exposed soil to hunt for worms in.

Jools calls to say she wasn't going to aquafit, and we have nothing out for dinner, except a pack of hot cross buns, so we toast those and have with a brew.

Monday was also the 39th anniversary of me starting work at the chicken factory. I've come quite a way in those years, seen and done some things.

Sunday 17th March 2024

I'm not going to do too many of these, "four years ago" posts, but just bear with me.

On St Patrick's Day 2020, I met up with a friend who dies church tours to visit three churches on Thanet.

A couple of people had bailed, but I don't really think it struck us then how things were going to change.

I met the group at the church in Ramsgate, and in a few minutes the tour arrived, John talked us through the chuch history and features. We did not shake hands, and I think we wore masks, if so the first time I did that.

The second church, IN Margate, cancelled at the last momenth, so I left the tour as I had been to the other two churches they were going to visit. Withn 6 days the whole country would be closed down and we would go nowhere for months.

So it goes. So it goes.

Sunday.

And in contrast to the previous day, rain was expected to fall into late afternoon.

We had nowhere to go, nothing to do.

Until the football began at quarter to one, at least for me.

We did lay in bed, but the sun rising at six now means it is pretty much light, by quarter to, and our brains wake us up.

So, we lay in bed a while, then get up to feed the cats, Jools does get dressed to go to the early session at the pool, and I drink coffee.

Once she is back, I decide to go and visit friends Gary and Julie, over in River. Time slips through our fingers, I was last there just before Christmas to deliver cards, though Gary was out. And since then we have been busy, and then I hurt my knee, so have not been out much.

So, I drive over to Dover, down past the old flat, under the railway, past The Crickets and then the nursing home where Nan saw out her days, to their house on the corner beside the park.

They have many plans for the year with the motor home and without, in fact were going away the next day for the first trip of the year.

So we chat over a brew and look out of their back window over the valley of the Dour, and houses spread on the other side of the river.

Then back home for midday, making lunch before the football starts, and to listen to DID on the wireless.

Jools went upstairs to paint the back room some more, so Scully and I watch football from the sofa, the second game being Man Utd v Liverpool, which despite what anyone in the media is telling you was not the best cup tie of all time, instead a game between a team taking to casually (Liverpool) and the other (Utd) who didn't seem to be bothered to do the basics.

A game broke out, however, Liverpool failing to score more than two, and a last minute Utd leveller. And after one more goal each in extra time, Utd break from defending a corner to slot in a winner in the 121st minute.

Football. And that was that.

Not shy about retiring

I plan to retire on 25th August next year.

I will be sixty.

That is the 25th, not the 31st, I plan to stop as soon as possible.

Its not that I hate work, it makes all the other stuff we do possible, and has helped pay for Chez Jelltex, aka the Ugly House.

And through work I have travelled round Europe and gone to China too.

I have also had a breakdown through it, and am still at work through the kindness and understanding of my manager and colleagues.

I saw a colleague nearly have a breakdown just before he retired, and I have no plan on having a breakdown in my 60s.

So, my manager last week asked if I still planned to retire, as plans would have to be made for a replacement.

Let that sink in, a replacemet 18 months in the planning, meaning I must do some serious shit or know serious shit. Or both.

I replied, among other thngs, that the company does not value me, the job I do nor the knowledge I have that could be used to improve the company. Were that to change, maybe, but I doubt things would change so much I would feel I had to change my plans.

Retiring earlier is more likely, if I'm honest.

So, that's the update.

Saturday 16th March 2024

At some point, I had to push my knee further.

So it was on Saturday we agreed to go to Dover Castle, not too far if I became "lame".

Up at six, with it being not just light outside, but the sun rose just gone six, and it felt like it was going to be a great spring day.

I went to Tesco, we didn't need much, and with Jools only working three days next week, we have enough frozen meals for her lunches.

Tesco was pretty empty, so I rush round getting the stuff we needed, and some stuff not on the list, then back home for quarter to eight to pack away the gatherings and have breakfast of fruit. Spanish strawberries have now appeared, and some are tasty as well as juicy, so we have a big bowl of fruit and more coffee before it was time to go to the castle for when it opened.

What we didn't know was that this weekend is where folks who play the lottery or scratchcards could use an old lottery ticket to gain free entry to English Heritage or National Trust properties as a thanks for for grants from the lottery fund.

This would mean it would be crazy crowded.

This we found when we arrived at the turn off on Castle Hill to the castle, the queue of traffic leading all the way down, waiting for the ten o'clock opening.

More joined the queue behind us, this did not feel normal.

But once we were allowed in, we all took a parking slot, then walked to the entrance, we flashed our new membership cards, and walked up the slope to the Keep and the church.

St Mary in Castro looks quite modern, and inside is mostly Victorian, but there are signs it is older. In fact it is Saxon, though until the middle of the 19th century was ruinous, so was repaired as to how it now appears.

The arches and windows are clearly Saxon, though little else remains.

I took shots of the windows, arches and some fittings with the big lens, but by then others had arrived at the church, so having got my shots, we left.

And further decided to go back to the castle a less busy day, so walked down to the main area in front of the Keep and then back down to the car park, where all spaces were now full, and more cars arriving every minute.

It only takes five minutes to drive home, where it was time for a brew, and a day of relaxing ahead, with the strong possibility for me of 10 (ten) hours of sport, though in the end I bailed on the late England v France rugby match as Ireland won the Grand Slam.

At three, Norwich played Stoke, on a sunny afternoon, and romped to a fine 3-0 win, thus strengthening our claim to sixth place in the table, but a long way to go yet.

On the tellybox then was Fulham v Spurs, in which Spurs went all Spursy and lost 3-0, but it could have been worse.