Yule Advent, Day 8

Oh what a fabulous morning.  Finally, there is the distinct nip of winter in the air and woollies were definitely called for.

Myself and another family met at Lyminge Forest and had a good tramp around, we saw all manner of fungi; fly agaric, what I think,  having now looked it up, was an amythest deceiver,(which turns out to be edible, didn't know that thought it was inedible) found by my friend, ceps and excitingly bracket fungus!   Also saw an umbo.  And there's lots of white, gills showing fungi too, which look a little like Oyster mushrooms, but I'm certain they aren't those, as Oyster mushrooms are usually more tubular in the stem.  (shh and we didn't get lost this time ;-)  )

 So nice to share the wonders of the woods.  Exploring Elf homes, and C been fascinated by the spikey coverings of sweet chestnuts; the ground was litered with them.

 Checking out the shelters/dens.

 Oooh those waterproof dungarees are wonderful.  Rye could tramp in the mud and deep puddles without me needing to worry about him getting wet and cold.

 "Come in my house."  Rye shaking C's hand as she comes into "his" home.

 C was doing really well on the balance bike, and beginning to cruise with her feet off the ground.

 Oops sat in a big muddy puddle.  Very grateful for Rye's old waterproof dungarees!

 LOL he enjoyed riding his scooter through all the mud.  I rather imagine he'll be in bed early to night!

 Fly agaric.  There were still loads of these in the woods; lots of baby ones emerging from the under growth too.  Maybe it's the witch in me, but I do get so excited when I see these.  lol.

One of the many, many paths through the trees, almost expected the gruffalo to come shuffling along!

Duck pond and pine cones.

 Friday was a beautiful sunny day, with a crispness to the air that just begged for outdoor fun.

 So down to Radnor Park we traipsed, with a picnic we ate in the van first, and then onwards to the duck pond.  The kids thought it was marvellous and really enjoyed feeding the various birds clambering for a bit of the foody action. 

 I really enjoyed it too, I'd forgotten how lovely this part of the park is.

 Naturally, a trip to Radnor Park meant a trip to the play park too.  It's a small play park, but it has some lovely pieces of play equipment.  Rye and J were very taken with the spinning rain maker, and J like the "drums".  This UFO-esq object is a roundabout and that swivels round at different heights depending where you sit in it.  Rye, loves all things that spin.  The only slight marr was the older children who had the day off school and were monopolising the park although they were polite enough and one lad did remind another not to swear because there were litteys about.  **smile**  And I could have gone in for lecturing on smoking, instead I just asked them not to smoke in the park area, no arsey-ness, they just leapt over the fence and smoked on the other side.

 After the park, we walked around the park for a bit, primarily looking for pine cones, to use as bird feeders and to decorate.  Not many pine cones yet; the trees are still laden with them; we did however see a fair number of different fungi/mushrooms.

 I thought initially these were earth balls, but nope field mushooms.

 The cluster of fungi amazed Rye.

 These are ceps.

 This is my usual pine cone collecting tree.  The best and biggest pine cones tend to fall from this beauty... alas he was holding onto them all still.  I guess the mild autumn is confusing the trees a bit.  Nevermind the children had fun racing around the trunk, chasing each other.  And we did find some pinecones, just not as many as I expected.

 No idea what these little black beauties are.

 And so far searching is only bringing up Black Fungus for me, but I shall keep looking.

We were out for a good 3 or so hours, thus once home and minded children gone, Rye snuggled down on the bean bag and watched popeye.

A successful day methinks. **smile**

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.