I wanted to see the orchids but I was prevented by a flying horse. A flying mare, to be accurate. So it goes. I wasn’t too upset: maybe the orchids will last and besides, the horse is getting lovelier by the day. Her wings arrived this morning.
I’ve been told about a colony of orchids on a roadside a dozen miles away: a thousand of them, apparently. At least that, if not more. Pyramidal orchids: not rarities to excite an orchid-hunter, longing to be the one who finds the first ghost orchid in Britain since 2009.
But this colony sounds pretty wonderful: and since I’ve become a bad botanist, it’s something I’m mad to see. If they’re still there: not brutally mown by some unbotanical council sub-contractor, or munched by a muntjac with a taste for beautiful things, or simply gone over, as flowers do.
It’s not been possible to get there. I don’t drive, you see; just as well, my wife Cindy has said more than once. And Cindy hasn’t had a second for a joint expedition. She’s been making her piece for the Raveningham Sculpture Trail. It opens on Wednesday: she likes a tight deadline. Apparently.
And what she’s making is a winged horse. I’ve seen it grow from a sketch to a supporting metal structure, from there to a beast of wood. The wood has since been carved with exquisite patterns of willow leaves. I’ve seen its wings drawn feather by feather, now transformed into shining steel. Soon they will be sprayed gold.
Is she Pegasus? Baraq? Fledge from Narnia? All of the above? Perhaps she’s the mother of all flying horses, or the daughter. On Sunday she will travel to Raveningham –in a van, she can’t fly because her wings must be fitted on site – and there she will print her proud hooves in the receiving earth for the rest of the summer. Or maybe she’ll float an inch or so above the sward, supported on her golden wings.
And I will admire her – and wonder how her beauty compares with that of a thousand orchids. A high-score draw, I’d guess.
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