One of the things I love about England is the weather. Like life itself, it is so unpredictable, so fickle, so difficult to pin down. Take this weekend - just as an example. Saturday was grey and miserable, dank rain drizzled from leaden skies and all colour was sucked out of the landscape. Then Sunday morning arrives and abracadabra, it is bright and beautiful under a cobalt blue sky with a handful of cauliflower clouds scudding eastward.
Time for an hour long autumn walk. Not too far. Clint took me to one of my favourite local haunts - Whirlow Brook Park. With boots on, I patted Clint's rear and wandered off along a familiar route, into The Limb Valley and under majestic beech trees towards Ringinglow.
At this time of year, if you keep your eyes peeled, you will see all manner of fungi. Mushrooms love October. They are mysterious and multivarious. Many is the time that I have sought to identify particular mushrooms but more often than not they have defeated me. I have even been on a couple of foraging walks with a local expert but still most examples of fungi refuse to give up their names.
There are an estimated 15,000 different types of fungi on this green and pleasant island and around 1,700 different types of lichen.
In the autumn sunlight, today's walk was delightful. I spotted several types of fungi and when I paused under a great beech tree I heard beech nuts popping all around me as they bounced upon the woodland floor. There was virtually no wind. It was just that the tree had decided that today was the day to release its seeds. One of them landed on my head.
I am reading a novel by Lionel Shriver at present and I had hoped to consume a couple more chapters while sitting inside Clint after the walk but by the time I had put my shoes back on it was 1.15pm. Time to speed home to make lunch for The Empress and I.
It has been a funny, disorienting kind of day because we put our clocks back an hour this morning. The rationale for this irritating twice yearly inconvenience continues to discombobulate me - rather like the accurate identification of fungi.
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| Rowan tree in Whirlow Brook Park earlier today |
A glorious day and you have a lovely set of photos to celebrate it. I had the satisfaction of having two loads of washing fluttering on the line in bright sunshine while I went for a walk in the woods. Clear, bright days are such a delight! (We had friends round for supper last night and I didn't have to make Sunday lunch, we just feasted on the left-overs.)
ReplyDeleteI believe that that is what vultures and corvids do SMG!...Thanks for calling by.
Delete"Cauliflower clouds" : I may have to steal that one day.
ReplyDeleteThat'll cost you fifty bucks buddy!
DeleteWonderful photos as usual. I love the one of the base of the tree (next to the last one). I don't know the first thing about mushrooms, except that when I was a teenager kids would go pick the magic ones from cow fields.
ReplyDeleteOf course you never partook Jennifer!...Or did you? Mmmmmmm...
DeleteDoes Clint know any grykes?
ReplyDeleteClint has never seen a limestone pavement Lord Dunham!
DeleteI especially love that first picture! The tree and its roots along with the leaf covered trail makes such a perfect Fall picture. Like you I do not care for the changing of time twice a year. I know it was designed for a reason but I wonder if it is still that necessary. Here in the states we don't change the time until next weekend and I don't really look forward to it!
ReplyDeleteToday I put our pork joint in the oven an hour before I should have done. Changing the clocks sucks!
DeleteDiscombobulation. I like that word. Not least because it ambles off your tongue.
ReplyDeleteI was most discombobulated earlier today when, and it took me some time to compute this, I had put the one clock which is my main reference point re time of the day manually an hour forward rather than back. The question to which I haven't found an answer yet: How many hours did I lose? Or gain?
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Now that is a conundrum that I am unable to solve with my pea-sized brain Ursula!
Deletefabulous photos, looks very like the Pacific Northwest without the mountains, same weather, same flora. We have not yet fallen back, our clocks are still what they were, but I do agree, unnatural to try to trick day light and time.
ReplyDeleteChanging clocks goes against the natural rhythms of our planet. Thanks for calling by Linda Sue.
DeleteA great fall walk can be spoiled by a clock change. When will these changes ever stop? Pudding you have to do something to fix this situation.
ReplyDeleteI will send in The Micromanager as head negotiator. She swill soon knock heads together.
DeleteDiscombobulate is a fantastic word. And you surely got some fantastic pictures here. In my next lifetime (haha!) I want to know all about mushrooms and fungi. I suppose there is still time to learn a bit about them here and now.
ReplyDeleteThank you for these pictures and words, Mr. P.
You are welcome Madam Moon!
DeleteWeather is fickle everywhere...always has been...always well be no matter how many glue themselves to the streets, disrupting peak hour traffic etc. (They could be turned into speed bumps, saving governments some money)!
ReplyDeleteHere in Queensland we don't have daylight saving...and I hope the status quo remains. It was given a test run a few years ago here in Queensland, but the cows complained and the fading curtains from the extra sunshine made us put the sun, moon, stars and hands on the clock back in their rightful places! :)
I take it that you do not support the views of Extinction Rebellion then? Using the protesters as road bumps seems a little harsh to me.
DeleteNo, Yorkie...I do not support the Extinction Rebellion clowns...they should be extinct.
DeleteWasn't it last year (or earlier this year) that an EU-wide referendum took place about finally ending the useless changing of the clocks? It has long been statistically proven that the original hope of saving energy has not come true, so why stick to it? Anyway, I don't mind the change, I simply go along with it, but I think it is useless and unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteLovely autumn walk! We did some walking this past weekend, too, and also saw many mushrooms along the way. When I was little, my Dad took us along when he went collecting (or is it picking?) mushrooms in the woods on Sunday mornings. He knew what was safe and what was best left where it was. I loved the smell of cooking on Sunday evenings, when the fresh mushrooms were turned into the most delicious side dishes and/or sauces to complement our Sunday night meal.
Some edible mushrooms are easy to identify but most are iffy. What a lovely childhood memory!
DeleteWasn't the clock changing business something to do with Scottish farmers? As the faffing about with the clock can't possibly produce any more daylight than there is already , I can't see the point. It just means that when I pick the granddaughter up from her art club at school which finishes at 4.30, it won't be long before we are going home in the dark!
ReplyDeleteBlame William Willett who died in 1915 before his stupid idea was put into practice.
DeleteI shall have to look that/ him up!!
DeleteFunny, I have just been reading about 'Bracket Fungi' and it seems you have photographed some.
ReplyDeleteI was please to see your title today, I love that word and also Hobbledehoy, I expect you've met a few of them in your teaching years.
Briony
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Oh yes Briony, I had whole classes of hobbledehoys!...And yes - that was a kind of bracket fungus. There are countless examples.
DeleteTaking another look at the fungi, I'm not sure they are Bracket as they have stalks.
ReplyDeleteBriony
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I bow to your superior knowledge Professor Cater...By the way, I saw your grandson's singing star on the Jools Holland Show!
DeleteShe's good isn't she? I think she is going a long way. Hope so, he may make enough money to buy me that cottage in the country, lol
Deletexx
Very talented. There was a bit of Adele about her voice. Why can't your grandson talent spot you?
DeleteThe second photo is of "squelch". I kid you not. We have it intermittently on our allotment.
ReplyDeleteThat may be the Lancastrian term for it Christina. Do you eat it over there?
DeleteMushrooms ARE very mysterious -- and you're right, they're out in force at this time of year. I see lots of them on the Heath. I can't identify them either, beyond a few obvious ones!
ReplyDeleteBritish Summer Time is kind of a pain. (Just like Daylight Saving Time in the United States.) It's amazing how just an hour of change can seem so disorienting.
I bet that many people have been injured or even hospitalised because of changing the clocks.
DeleteSo few people take the time to notice all the details found when walking. An entire universe functioning within our world.
ReplyDeleteI love mushrooms but prefer to find them safely identified and plucked at our market. There are many morel hunters here during the season but I have no confidence in their expertise. The poison variety is just too similar.
Yesterday was opening day of elk and deer hunting. I wondered if you have hunting where you live or if all critters are safe.
Some people - usually posh men - like to shoot birds - grouse or pheasants. But in England we don't have big wild animals like you have over there Penelope.
DeleteLovely photos YP. Nothing better than a walk through the woods on a sunny autumn day.
ReplyDeleteEspecially when you are not likely to encounter any bears or wolves CG.
DeleteMy goodness, gracious! Those are some majestic pictures!! Wow! I can't believe how many different kinds of 'shroms you found on one short walk! Beautiful!!
ReplyDeleteSaturday in Denver was 75 degrees F (24 C) and this morning was 11 degrees (-11 C) with 7 inches (18 cm) of snow and more to come. But, Wednesday will be above freezing. People say about Colorado, "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes!"
Ha-ha! I like that saying. What an amazing difference between Saturday and Monday. It makes our differences seem quite insignificant.
DeleteLovely photos as per YP
ReplyDeleteMay I say that you have excellent taste sir.
DeleteI always get discombobulated when the clocks change. It's almost like jetlag and takes a few days to acclimatise. We can thank (or curse) William Willett for introducing "summertime" to help farmers. There is monument to him in Petts Wood (Kent) where I lived as teenager. The local pub there is called The Daylight Inn.
ReplyDeleteIf I came across that statue I might throw mud at it! Did you know that Silly Willett died before his stupid notion was activated?
DeleteI love that first photo, with the tree roots exposed.
ReplyDeleteI took several picture along that woodland path but that was my favourite Jenny.
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