I had an excellent time in the UK (thanks for asking), including four days of interesting visits in and around the Broads, catching up with projects and chums. The V.I.P. visit to the Museum of the Broads was a particular highlight - so many fascinating exhibits I could have spent a day there! Norwich is always a nice city to visit, although those that aren't keen on spiders probably kept away from City Hall over the last couple of weeks! Family time was also very special.
I did also visit a full-size windmill but haven't downloaded the photos yet.
I've not yet been home a week, but have really noticed the difference to before I went away in October. There has been quite a lot of rain, although it is still unnaturally warm for this time of year. That has meant that fungi are finally making their presence felt at the One Acre Wood and in the Orchard and Meadow. The ones in the Orchard and Meadow are interesting enough and meant that we felt it was worth frequent visits to the Wood in case.
There have been lots of interesting sightings.
The red ones are interesting as there is a silly rumour on social media that you always find cèpes near them! Anyway, having a wood that is full of interesting mushrooms makes one a bit paranoid about "visitors" having it away with anything edible. Before you accuse me of being paranoid, this did happen once - we surprised a bunch of dubious industrial mushroom pickers, challenged their right to steal our mushrooms, which had no effect at all, and the scale of their picking meant we had nothing at all for three years. So, while the lot of bolets of the left were fine, I did wonder if these other ones had been tampered with!
We are ultra-cautious about mushrooms. Some bolets are fine, others taste very nasty, and some are downright poisonous, so we left all these where they were. But there is one type of bolet that is not confused with any other, the mighty cèpe de Bordeau (or Pennybun or porcini depending on your country/language of preference). We have those from time to time, and this last week has been a good week!
We've eaten some and we've dried some to keep the joy going through the year, and we also have a couple in the fridge for supper tomorrow - very good in omelettes!
The boar have mostly moved on, but one came back on Friday night in the rain to eat more nuts - the last few are still there, in case she feels hungry again, but with the hunting season now upon us I fear boar and deer will be much more discrete for a few months. There is more good footage of boar eating nuts and when I have the time, I will get more videos loaded up for all to enjoy. In the meantime, have a good week!
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