Fly Agaric

The last couple of days my mojo has gone awol, probably because of the impending departure of Chris and Lizzy. On Thursday I completed another urgent report and on Friday we took a picnic lunch to their house and had a lovely couple of hours chilling, collecting valuables that we'll be looking after while they're away and being shown key features of the house that we need to check up on while they're absent. Saying the final goodbye was so very hard...

But today I decided I needed to get a grip, so, as it was another lovely day,  Pete and I went back to Castor Hanglands to hunt for invertebrates and fungi in the woodland areas. I have to admit that I kept checking my phone to see how their flight was going, having received an earlier  message confirming that they'd arrived at the airport in good time.

The woodland fungi are now approaching their best, with plenty of variety of both mushrooms and bracket fungi. It was wonderful to see such an abundance of Fly Agaric (everyone's favourite!) and to find several sweetly-scented Aniseed Funnel, whose caps have a peculiarly greenish hue. A fresh Bay Bolete was also one of the highlights, the recent rain making its cap quite slimy. But possibly my favourite find of the day was a tiny white slime mould growing over moss (see extra).

In the evening we were treated to a wonderful meal of meatballs in tomato sauce, cooked by Alex and CJ. Nice to finally be able to relax and unwind, though I'll be even happier when I know that C and L have arrived safely at their hotel!