shewhomust | Delayed gratification

I titled this post on Monday, when I wrote it; I had posted to LJ - with photo - the previous evening, and was confident I could do so again. But I never again managed to maintain a sufficiently stable internet connection to do - well, anything really. I'd get online, and then lose it, and eventually I decided that I had better things to do. So that "delayed" is doubly apt.

At ten o'clock last night I turned off my computer, and saw that the sky beyond the window was stained pink with sunset. So I rushed downstairs, and went out for a walk round the village. I was too late to choose a vantage point from which to watch the sun go down, or the rosy clouds frame a landmark, so I just strolled along the streets, admiring the plants rising above the garden walls and the sweetness of the scented air. There will be other evenings to benefit more fully from the sunset (visibility permitting) - but not tonight, for tonight is the night of the Midsummer Phantoms.

So far, it's been all about the flowers - the flowers and the lazing with a book and the sleeping quite a lot. I had noticed as we crossed the causeway that the carpet of thrift, which is usually well past its best during our week on the island, was in full bloom, so yesterday morning I walked back to the causeway and had fun taking photos: single blooms, and one clump half of which was regulation sea-pink pink and half pure white, and general views in which the posts which mark the pilgrim way across the sands rose from a foaming sea of pink - and then I came home, we all went out for a fish-and-chip lunch at the Ship, and I snoozed away most of Sunday afternoon.

This morning I went out again, this time across the nature reserve, to the dunes. Again, the orchids which would normally be past their best, still numerous but with their purple spikes singed to brown, were at their peak, some barely emerging from the buds - there are some advantages to the lateness of this year's spring, for my selfish enjoyment at least!

Walking down the lane which leads to the nature reserve, I met a couple, each with camera, telephoto lens and tripod, carefully flattening the grass around a lone purple orchid - admittedly the first I'd seen, but I knew this was just the first outlier of many. They asked me, was this the Holy Island orchid? If there is such a thing as the Holy Island orchid, I know nothing about it, but I said I thought that might be the marsh helleborine, which I've only ever seen once. I might have told them where, but they said they had a map which marked the Holy Island orchid, so I didn't insist. I meandered on until I reached the sea, at the beach just beyond Emmanuel Head, where I took off my boots and paddled. I might have looped on to the castle and home that way, but there were people about, and I was tempted by the possibility that the marsh helleborine, too, might be lingering later than usual, so I took the path from which I had seen it last time. No sign, but many more orchids, and a vivid white patch of bog cotton waving its banners below the distant castle.

And so home, bath, lunch - and soon out to Phantoms.