I'll tell you now, I'm writing this so long after the walk that I can't actually remember most of it! It's a good job I take so many photos to jog my memory.
One day the week before last, probably, Matthew and I went to the Favourite Place via the Hundred Acre Wood, and we looked for things we haven't spotted before. As soon as we got to the wood, we found these. I have no doubt at all that at least three of you will know what they are, whether they're poisonous, and what type of places they grow. I, as usual, have no clue and can only say with any certainty that these are fungi. I've Googled, but there are so many varieties that I can't tell. They could be honey mushrooms, but I really can't be sure. As all mushrooms are, whether poisonous or not, these are the devil's food.
We pressed on, but I was enjoying the sound of us walking on the wood chip path so I recorded 30 seconds of it for you to hear. In terms of sound, I think the best walking surfaces are wood chippings, gravel, bracken, pebbles on a beach and coarse sand.
We tried one of the other paths through the wood today but instantly regretted it. It was boggy, and the path was very narrow in places so we had to fight our way through great big patches of nettles. Perhaps a path for the winter when we don't have bare arms and ankles. We were looking for a house for Piglet though, and the undergrowth was too thick here for him to clear a path to his front door.
It doesn't matter at all that Matthew was almost thirteen last week and I was forty-three. Winnie the Pooh and friends are for everyone of every age. We took Piglet on our walk for no other reason than to plonk him in front of a tree in the Hundred Acre Wood and call it his house. It took a while because, as I've said before, this is a young wood so none of the trees were really wide enough. This was about the best we could find.
Onward! It's funny to me now that I was worried we'd miss the corn if we didn't visit every few days, because I've since learned that it takes rather a long time to reach the picking stage. The ears appeared a few weeks ago, but they don't seem to have grown much since then. (I've just made the mistake of Googling how much farmers make from fields of corn and such – don't go down that political rabbit hole, it's scary!)
'Come on, Matthew,' says I, 'no time to dilly-dally today!' I remember saying this, but I can't remember why we had no time. It's possible I was lying, because every time we get to this little hill, Matthew slows down and starts to drag his feet like he used to when he was two and we were making him walk up Clougha. I can't say anything because I eye it with trepidation as well, even though it's about the only hill we have in any of our regular walks. Pathetic, the pair of us!
Oooh, Matthew spotted the interesting patterns in the corn field – also, isn't the corn field tiny?! We couldn't work out why the patterns were there because the ground is flat, but the corn has grown in fabulous waves. I don't know if it looks like that in the other fields around these parts because we can't get high enough to see them.
Eventually, breathless and stumbling very dramatically as though we'd climbed thousands of feet or run a very long distance, we reached our bench on the new road. I always take the same few photos when we reach this peak – it wouldn't feel quite right to not take the photos. I think I just like to have a little record of how clear the view of the Lakes is each time, and what the fields are looking like, and whether it's cloudy.
Because it doesn't all look the same each time, you see? The muck-spreaded field looks different every time we see it. It quite often has people in it too. Once we saw two people in it at opposite ends, and they were talking on their phones to each other. They looked like surveyors actually, and one of them had one of those geophysics measuring device things that I can't remember the name of – my dad will know because he used to watch Time Team. Ohhhhh, Time Team! I loved that. I used to watch it every day when Thomas was having his afternoon nap. Is it still on? One of the best things ever on telly.
Anyway, we sat a while and looked about, soaking up the calm and quiet that you can only feel when you're up high and can't hear town noises. Delicious. But we always have to go home in the end. We set off on autopilot a little bit, chattering about one thing and another, and then I realised we'd gone the wrong way! I didn't notice until we came almost to the crematorium and I said, with a nostalgic chuckle, 'hey, Matthew, do you remember when we sat on the side of the road by the crematorium and had a cup of tea— wait a minute! We've gone the wrong way!!!' It's not important at all, and it really doesn't matter whether we go past the crematorium or down Jack Sparrow Lane, but when I have it in my head that I'll go down Jack Sparrow Lane and I don't, I know it'll be a little niggle that will hang around in my head and make me think I've forgotten to do something important. So we turned around and went back to Jack Sparrow Lane. And just to make it especially right, I played the Pirates of the Caribbean theme tune in my pocket. Do you think I'm going a little peculiar? I think I probably am.
Jack Sparrow Lane brings you out at the other side of the crematorium, and we noticed that the crem has square trees. I don't think you can really see what I mean here, but the trunks are sort of squared, in that they definitely have four sides and they are definitely not round. I Googled 'square trees' – it showed me cypress trees. I don't think that's what these are. I don't think cypress trees are even square.
But these are definitely elderberries. They're in magnificent abundance all over the place at the moment, so you've probably seen lots too, depending on where you are in the world.
And these are definitely acorns.
Haha! I've totally run out of steam with this post – that's what happens when you don't write up a walk until a week and a half after you walked it! That'll teach me.
I'm going to write some more before I forget those too!
Until a bit later on today, patient ones.
WQ
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