Autumn micro-landscape

A day that didn't go as planned! After editing some minutes from a recent meeting, I dashed out to Waitrose to do a bit of shopping and to pick up a pair of shoes I'd ordered. I was also planning to give Ben a lift home. When I arrived at the store I realised I'd forgotten to pick up my phone so I couldn't collect the shoes or contact Ben to tell him I was there - a complete fail...Luckily it's only five minutes from home, so I popped back later to fetch the shoes and a few more bits of shopping that I'd forgotten the first time round!

After lunch I decided to go and have a final check of Old Sulehay in preparation for tomorrow's guided walk. This was not to be - a crash on the A47 had caused a long tailback, and I inched along the Castor by-pass for about thirty minutes during the one part of the day with glorious sunshine. When I finally arrived at the Sutton roundabout I decided to change my plans and head to Southey Wood for a walk. 

By this time it was grey and overcast, with a threat of rain, so I had a fairly short walk. Once again, fungi were rather sparse, although there were a lot of False Chanterelle in the pine plantations. I rather liked this autumn micro-landscape with emerging Bulbous Honey Fungus, richly clothed in golden hairs, and a young bracket fungus, either Southern or Artist's Bracket. 

The rain started just before I reached the car, but was relatively light. On the way home I stopped at the farm shop to buy some game, and ended up also bringing back three pumpkins which had been reduced to a pound each. Apparently they still had 220 to sell! I told the lady that I was planning to make pumpkin pie with some of mine. Despite selling pumpkins she'd never eaten one! I gave her a rough idea of the recipe for pumpkin pie and she promised me she'd give it a go. I hope she enjoys it!