Last of the summer...

Sitting here at my desk watching the rain sheet the windows, a hot cup of tea to hand, it seems strange to think that this time last week we were strolling through herds of nervous sheep enjoying the last of the summer. The landscape basked in the gentle gold of the autumn sun and we found a late crop of blackberries, which we hurried to pick. It has been mostly too rainy to pick this season, and they are of no use when they are wet.




We quietly harvested large juicy berries in the company of several fat garden spiders, feasting on blackberry marinaded flies...





...and a young roe buck, grazing downwind and almost oblivious to our quiet foraging.




At last he realised he was not alone, and sloped off quietly into the undergrowth. We picked a crumbles-worth of berries and returned to the main track, where Andy motioned silently to me, pointing to a spot before him, almost within touching distance...who could this be, hiding not-very-successfully behind the drystone wall?




After a few seconds, he realised he'd been rumbled.

Further along the fields, late elderberries were just beginning to fade, and we picked enough to fill a bag (I am turning into my mother; she never went on a walk without half a dozen bags of varying types and usually a shovel too, in case we came across a decent dollop of horse manure).




Andy proving to be the human equivalent of a picking machine; I am attempting yet again to make wine, this time I hope it might be even be drinkable as well as alcoholic. Descending into scrubby woodland, we found a bumper crop of shaggy parasol mushrooms, and picked enough for tea - cutting them with a pen knife, so's not to damage the roots. And taking no more than we needed.




My usual note of caution - we only ever pick what we are sure of. If there is any doubt, we will not eat them. Even if it is a familiar type we have eaten safely before, we double check with our books. I have a variety of identification books, even one I've had since I was eight. But (in reply to Sea Angels enquiry) the best one so far has been 'Mushrooms' by Roger Phillips, which is jampacked with hundreds of species, displaying numerous variations and excellent descriptions to help you sort out your Russulas from your Lactarius. In all my years of amateur fungi spotting, this is by far the best guide I have seen.

Another - inedible - treasure found. Some kind of fossil. Sea urchin, sea anaeome, jelly fish - we don't know. But there are clearly veins running through it, and what looks to be a patterned shell. Fantastic to think that these lush fields were once great oceans, heaving with sea life. (I think...my geology is a bit foggy on these things...)




Onwards, through more startled sheep...

...and up the hill...the shadows lengthening in the deepening gold.

We biked homewards, satisfied with a good day's tramping and hedgerow harvesting. The day could not not possibly get any better - could it?

Oh yes, it could. We stopped the bike just in time to see some fat hot air ballons ascending into the evening sky, with ominous rainclouds blowing in from the West Country...(music courtesy of Mr Camille Saint-Saens)

Feeling replete with memory, our return home was topped off by a foraged supper, courtesy of a roadkill pigeon, as seen in the post below. So farewell to what we had of summer...