Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig Forest.

I am very much enjoying having the use of my friend's van, and definitely looking forward to when I can afford to buy a car of my own.  It isn't terribly green minded, but I can't deny that living where I do, a car makes life a lot easier, and it makes popping out so much easier; be it going down to the fountain in the evening, before bed, or like today, going over to the Forest.

I was quite miffed yesterday that the autumnal wind, rain and cold  precluded a trip out, naturally my boy didn't really care, he was very up for going back to the fountain; however wet suit or not, I made the decision it really wasn't suitable weather and asked him what he'd like to do indoors... he choose painting.

 Personally, I thought this looked like a Dr Seus-esq cat, however Rye insisted it was a painting of the fountain.

Now this one I can see as the fountain!

Today the weather was playing ball, a lovely crisp autumn day.  So bag packed, we bundled into the van and I drove over to my "local" forest - Lyminge Forest (often called Wildwood)  It's a managed forest, so the trees run in long straight lines; perhaps elsewhere in the forest it is more "natural", I believe there's over 400 acres (sorry said miles on FB, meant acres).    Today I decided to take Rye mushroom and fungi hunting.   Not foraging, I use to know my fungi well enough to pick to eat; but its been too long, far too long since I did that (well over a decade) and I learned about fungi in my neck of the woods (so to speak, as I lived on the moors in Yorkshire), I wouldn't dream of attempting to pick fungi/mushrooms to eat from around these parts.

 Although this fungi is easy to identify, its a yellow coral fungi. 

 This not so much, there were lots of these around, could be Russula, brittlegills?  Or maybe collybia, toughshanks.   Lots of conifers in these woods, along with beech, birch, oak and chesnut.

No idea what this little guy is; have to say I've never seen black beetles so big, until I moved down South.
I think it's a dor beetle, we saw several of these in the woods.

 We came across many of these shelters too - Elve shelters I told Rye ;-)

Rye's attempt to climb a tree, however he found "mushrooms" growing in the middle so he didn't want to attempt to climb the tree in case he damaged them.

 And what every little boy with stick and mud does............... prod it.

 Red Admiral butterfly; it let us both get quite close; so much so we could see the white nibs on the end of its antenae.

 I was very excited to spot this; a fly agaric!  Superb!  I probably should mention at this point, Rye and myself were lost and I was trying to find the track back to the car park..... yes foolish me, I'd gone for a walk in a massive forest without a compass... clearly lived in surburbia far, far too long.

 And I was rather excited to see this fella too - mainly cos I recognised him immediately as a Boletus or cep muchroom.   Left him be, perhaps if we get lost again we'll find him and maybe he'll have grown really big! 

The "Scary Dark Woods" as Rye named parts of the forest that were so dense it looked dark.  He said there was a beast in there, with big eyes, nose, ears and teeth, but it was friendly and ate buscuits.  Apparently, we have to take some for it next time we visit.