Find some fungi

And let yourself linger

Hello you. How are you doing? To start, please enjoy this video as a thank you for allowing me some space last week while I was up in Scotland with family. The video was filmed a few years ago by my partner of our dog, Noushi, when he took her to work one day.

Thanks to the recent wet weather in the UK, now is a GREAT time to look for fungi. And they really can be found all over the place. Yes, of course you’re likely to find some exciting specimens (like the beautiful magpie inkcap above) if you explore a damp deciduous woodland this weekend, but look out on street trees, decaying raised beds, tree stumps or even in cracks in the pavement and you might be surprised what you find. Look closer at what appears to be a boring lawn and you might discover a fairy ring or some yellow club fungus glowing amongst the green blades of grass.

Depending on the fungi you come across, you might want to try making a spore print to help you identify it. My friend Nicola posted a video on Instagram this week which guides you through how to do this. There are lots of great books out there which contain info on the fungi you might come across (like this Roger Philips classic), but if you’re a beginner, a good (and free) starting place may be this Woodland Trust article which covers some common mushrooms or this UK Wildcrafts video, which I’ll include below. The cap, stipe (or stem), flesh, spores, gills and the habitat you find a mushroom in can all help you correctly identify them. Don’t forget you can upload photos to iNaturalist too, where other people will try and help you with identification.

Here are a just a few of the fungi I’ve spotted over the last year or two (mostly in South London, Kent and Scotland)… Do you recognise any?

I wanted to leave you this week with a poem from Mary Oliver. I’ve seen a section of it (which I have taken the liberty of formatting in bold below) doing the rounds a lot this week, for obvious reasons:

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

Mary Oliver - Invitation

From A Thousand Mornings (Penguin Books, 2013)

I know a lot of people who interact with my emails are doing important activism work (or perhaps you are partaking in such work for the first time) so take this email as a reminder to look after yourself around the reading, learning, watching, sharing, talking, protesting, petition-signing and MP-emailing you are doing, now and always.

I was thankful to be reminded of this myself this week in

Gina Martin

’s October Good Chat email, which quoted Ashtin Berry:

Your political action is meant to be rigorous, not exhaustive.

So, with this in mind, let yourself linger this week.

Notice the fungi standing strong in the face of a storm, doing their bit for the ecosystem.

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