This I know to be true: Natural remedy

 For me, relief and consolation have ALWAYS come from time spent in solitude in God's creation.

My poem for the week's Toy Press word of the week, Cheer, which was a while back, emphasizes this.

CBC's reaction to this was "You should stitch this and put it in a toilet" and "Your poem is saying everything is lovely when it's not. Perhaps it is a bit saccharine.  However, I think he's missing the point. The point I'm making is, it doesn't make everything lovely. But somehow, things don't seem quite as desperate after... What do you think?

Natural remedy

When my heart is troubled and heavy

And my soul needs a cheer.

I raise my eyes outwards

To behold what is near.

Sunshine, green leaves, stout trees

And birds melodiously singing,

Then my heart fills with gladness

From the blessings nature’s bringing.

Breathing deeply from an hour,

Spent strolling in fresh air.       

Then the anxieties of life seem less final

And much easier to bear.

Schwarzwalder Champignon

When I shared my Heidelberg Fungi post, I mentioned how disappointed I was at the amount of fungi I had seen this Autumn.  This is partially due to a lack of walks in the right places.  But luckily, we were headed to the Black Forest in Germany so I KNEW this was my chance to see some more interesting fungi.  But would I be able to spot them?

We were staying in the beautiful spa town of Bad Wildbad, where CBC and I had spent a couple of happy nights and days with his Brother some years ago.

We headed up the funicular railway to the Sommerberg and after a visit to the Tree top walk and the epic slide, we walked onwards through the forest.

And here's the first of a few posts of what I saw.

The first fungus I spotted was Yellow Stagshorn emerging out of a mossy stump of a tree. I've seen this a couple of times but a colourful fungus is always exciting!

Next, I saw this pinky/red fungus which I think was a Beech/Beechwood Sickener, Russula Nobilis, definitely a Brittlegill/Russula mushroom, if not that exact one.

The ones below, which were somewhat damaged (as is often the way with Brittlegills as they are tasty to insects!) were Russula atropurpurea, otherwise known as the Purple Brittlegill.

At this point, CBC had given up on me and walked ahead.

Once I got up close and personal to the leaves, I spotted more and more.

This orangey one below was intriguing to me.

And here's another view of it where you can see the light shining through its gills. This one was in better condition.

As there were plenty of these, I wanted to have a look at its gills so I tried to lift it up a bit but then it snapped.  This bright orange latex oozed out of it.

It wasn't till after the next day's walk and seeing plenty of these that I found an ID on this fungi-type. And it's a highly-sought after edible which is called the Saffron Milkcap or to use its rather delightful and apt Latin name, Lactarius Deliciosus!

Here was another example I thought, but now, looking at it, it's not the same one as it has a white stipe!

I'm not sure what this was.  Was it a Fly Agaric variety without its spots?

These pale pink mushrooms are perplexing me a bit. They could be Rosy Bonnets, Mycena Rosea but the shape is slightly confusing

It was hard to tell if this was a Russula Amethystina or another Purple Brittlegill! It had a big pool of water in it!

 In my first 20 minutes of looking, I was already happy to have seen to many but what would I find next? I had come with a wishlist of a few fungi I would like to see but would I see any of them??

x

The beauty and fungi of Juliet's Woods

Back in August, when we were in Northumberland, I was keen for us to have an evening walk and CBC suggested we drive to Slaley to visit a place called Juliet's Woods (however, another time I want to visit Slaley Forest).

We parked where you can see (spot the red car in the picture)

These photos are in a random order so enjoy my random musings.

CBC spotted this tree at one point

He decided to climb into it.

I wondered what he was photographing...

And later, I found out!

We came out the woods into a meadow at one point.

On the way home, driving along the Hexham Race course road, the sunset was incredible!

I thought this fungi's gills looked like a labyrinth. I am happy to know its name is Oak Mazegill- a very appropriate moniker!

This is what they looked like from above.

This tree had a beautiful heart-shaped hole.

Here's an old Brittlegill (Russula)- could be a Rosy Brittlegill or a Primrose Brittlegill more likely.

The light streaming through the trees was glorious and golden. Impossible to capture in a photo!

This Beefsteak fungus was easy to ID!

We saw a wealth of this fungus!

CBC spotted this very old and manky Chicken of the Woods under some holly! The brackets were unusually low down.

There were so many ebullient red berries around.

The Haws on the Hawthorn below looked tempting. You can make a lovely winter tonic from these or Ketchup!

Another little fungus- not sure what!

A view of the meadow again.

And here I am again!

Close ups of the meadow.

Here's a birch polypore looking a bit beaky.

This one even more so! Not sure what this was!

 Both CBC and I agreed it had been a magical walk, we even saw some deer and heard many squirrels. I even collected some hazelnuts! We must return!

Madeira Day 3

On our 3rd day, we got up for Breakfast and CBC went to go and pick up the hire car.  We decided to make sandwiches from the buffet to take on our walk.  We got in the car and drove to do walks PR10 and PR11.

The first walk was a mere 3km total called Vereda dis Balcoes. It was super easy and accessible on a wide path that was pretty flat. 

It led to a viewing platform with wonderful views of the mountains around. We soon noticed people feeding chaffinches from their hands. Clearly The Madeiran Chaffinches love a Picnic. 

It didn't take long for me to lure my own chaffinches with a bit of sandwich. A few of them are from my hand whilst fluttering and the more audacious and greedy ones sat on my finger hoovering up every morsel. 

Despite them being comfortable if anyone with food held out a hand, it felt very special to have a tiny bird on the hand. 

Once we'd stayed here a little while, we walked back to start of the route. There was another route in the village. Pr10 which was longer.  Around 11km. It went along the Levada Do Furado.  It is one of the oldest public levadas, acquired by the state to irrigate the agricultural fields of Porta da Cruz.

Many of the walking routes follow the Levada, historic water ways. The routes can be quite narrow in areas and you will be next to a sheer drop but they have metal railing erected. 

The walk was pleasantly shady as it was overhanging with trees, however, the walk did not feel particularly varied as the view was hard to spot, there was little variation in ups and downs. 

A highlight of the journey was reaching a waterfall with a mesmerising clear pool. A man was swimming in there and we were tempted to go in too. In retrospect, we regret not doing this. 

Levadas. The walks are very safe as they have railings. However, a lot of the walk was the same.

Possibly the most exciting part of the walk was walking through the rock face!

The final 1.5km of the walk was downhill (finally some variation!) We ate our picnic lunch in some lovely shade before the descent.  It ended at the Portela belvedere in the municipality of Machico.

The views were beautiful from there.

We found a yellow taxi waiting there at the who drove us back to the car in Ribiero Frio! We were very thankful he was there!

Once we got back to the car, we decided to drive to Santana to have a look around. It was said to have examples of a typical Madeiran traditional house.

There were a few of them.

In one of them, they had a small shop selling a few things including ice-lollies from a natural company.  CBC had a pineapple and mint one.  I had a Strawberry and chocolate lolly. It was covered in a thin layer of crispy dark chocolate and had a fruity inner of real frozen strawberry pulp.  It was really tasty. We stopped for a cool drink in a nice cafe/restaurant. I had a non-alcoholic version of Poncha (punch with passionfruit and orange) and CBC had a bear.

As we sat there, I was admiring the beautiful archictecture of the hospital

We decided to have Dinner in Santana and there was a  Pizza restaurant with a very noisy parrot near the car. CBC had a pizza and I had some sort of tasty steak with fries and a beautiful rainbow salad.

In the car on the way back, we passed through many tunnels, long ones at that! We got back around 9pm so I decided to go for a swim FINALLY in the hotel pool. It was very pleasant. I then booked for the next morning.  They told me it had to be before 9am as they had swimming lessons then which seemed a bit annoying but I was happy to book for 8.30am.