toadstools – Mostly Motley

What a difference a week makes…

First there was this little chap poking up in the hedgerow…

Soon he was joined by these little poppets…

And then, just a few days later, they looked like this…

That’s the original chap on the right. Now joined by all those babies.

Less than a week and such a transformation.

I walk the dog in and around woodland most days, and decided last year after noticing such a lot of different fungi popping up practically every day, that this year, I’d get myself a field guide.

I’m not planning to pick any – I’ve watched far too many Midsomer Murders etc, for that, and although I’m sure the Other Half loves me, I suspect asking him to trust my mushroom identification skills would be a step too far. (When we visited the poison garden at Alnwick a couple of years ago, he was very disturbed to discover just how many species I already grow in our garden, and how much I knew about their poisonous properties…) – poor boy.

No, I don’t want to eat them, but I would really love to be able to put a name to a cap, as it were, and know more about them generally.

So please, tell me which guide do you have? What would you recommend a beginner to use?

Keeping my eyes open…

I’m all over the place today – stressing about half a dozen daft things that really don’t deserve the attention. This is one of those days when you know the theory, but putting it into practise is harder to manage.

Still, I couldn’t help being struck by a few of the amazing things I’ve seen in the last twenty-four hours in the life of Mrs Average.

Last night, from the school car park, I took this picture of the sunset.

There were other mums standing about gazing up at that sky – even the children were mesmerised.

This morning, during the walk in the woods, I spotted these…

Each little ball with a neat hole in the top. Had something worked its way in or out?

They were right beside these…

So delicate, they look like Fern Britton, flouncing her chiffon on Strictly Come Dancing.

And my favourite beech tree had a halo this morning. You’ll have to believe me, because it’s hard to get some of this with my phone camera, but there was a definite yellow circlet around the top branches as the sun broke through the trees – it was a moment of glory on an average sort of day – wonderful.