Shaggy Ink Caps

These lovely specimens of the shaggy ink cap mushroom (Coprinus comatus) were growing right outside Sundsvall Hospital.  Normally I'd have picked them because they are good to eat but they were growing right outside the main entrance, where a steady stream of buses and taxis pass by, so they are probably fairly contaminated with pollutants.
Another reason for not picking them was that I knew it would be several hours before I got home and they deteriorate rapidly if not cooked soon after picking.
I have been told they could make you very sick if you drank alcohol around the same time you ate them but the Wikipedia article on them made no mention of this. A little further searching revealed the common ink cap, (Coprinopsis atramentaria), similar but by no means identical to this one. That is the mushroom to avoid if you are drinking alcohol!
After the check up at the hospital I went back to my former workplace, Mid Sweden University, and met several of my old colleagues. We ate lunch together and I listened to how things were at work and heard they were pretty much as when I left 6 months ago. I felt very happy to meet up with my old friends, but also very happy to be retired!