An evening on Black Cap

Black Cap is an area on the South Downs, near Lewes, where we sometimes go for a walk and/or a picnic. Last time we were there the weather was not so hospitable for picnicking (though apparently, it was the end of August - 2011 - you never know in England, though), so we had dinner in the local pub after our walk, but it was much nicer this weekend, so we had a picnic. In fact, it was a bit windy and overcast and therefore ever so slightly chilly. In some ways, this was kind of nice, as we've been having a heatwave, but still, a bit of a shame while enjoying the great outdoors...

Anyway. Because it's summer, the downs were carpeted with orchids - mostly Pyramidals, like the one above, which are the ones which are mainly out this time of year - but also some Common Spotteds

...in a variety of colours. Many of them were gone over or beginning to go over.

And quite a few Fragrants, which are mainly what you can see above - there were areas where it was just orchid after orchid - lovely. 

The above are Fragrant orchids.   We saw lots of gone-over Twayblades which don't look like much once they are done blooming - but you can still see the characteristic large leaves and spiky stem. 

And remarkably, we even found one Bee Orchid which was still in bloom - it's quite late for them - this one is obviously either very sheltered or a bit of a procrastinator. Most of the lower blooms were turning to seed pods, but this one was still open and lovely. 

And this isn't an orchid at all, of course, just a little round-headed rampion, which I think very pretty. 

We had some kids with us - only one of mine, the girls being away at Guide Camp - but the folks we met up with managed to bring along two girls, which was lucky for Alex, so he wouldn't feel lacking in sisterly attention for the day! They had good fun climbing trees and the sides of the path, which are very steep. 

And of course, we had a huge picnic, which I didn't take a photo of (well, I think there's one on my phone, but it's not very good, so I shan't bother with it).