Sunday 11 October 2009

Sunday 11th October 09

A lie in, lovely!

After lunch I cycled down to York Cemetery to go on a fungal foray with another fungus enthusiast, Findlay Cook. I asked both my boys if they'd like to come but the answers were negative, pity. Lots of people turned up, but because of the mostly dry weather, relatively few fungi. There were a few 'ink caps' and related 'fairies bonnets', a parasol, puffballs, a bracket and quite a few difficult to determine species. After the walk around, we went to the Chapel where Findlay had got a few more specimens he'd found elsewhere, including some Amanita muscaria, the Fly Agaric, and a conjoined pair of ceps.

I had a good chat with my friend Jane, who's a wheelchair user, about access to shops and what she thinks about places which could easily be more accessible but don't bother. We are both pretty pissed off with some people's attitude.

When we finished our chat, Findlay had cleared up and put all the specimens in a bag, so I asked him if he was intending to use the double Boletus... and he was happy for me to have them. So I cycled home with some Shaggy Ink Caps and the little 'penny buns' and I cleaned these up and put them into a frying pan when I got home.

When I'd had a coffee I went to sort out more composting and pulled out another few Privet hedge plants. This resulted in between 10 and 15 roots, and another Freecycler came round to pick them up.

Gill made a pizza with home-made tomato topping, and we had that with potato salad, and some tough avocados which I think need to ripen a bit.

The most mention-worthy thing during the evening was that I prepared a lot of plums, and put them in a drying tray on a plastic bag, so that they dry on the stove over the next day or three, and can then be peeled off the plastic and put on a rack to continue drying. They end up chewy and delicious, by far my favourite way of preserving fruit, and my favourite way of eating fruit too!

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