Lots of walking on my last day in Den Haag. A visit to the Peace Palace. Then, to Vegane Glorie for an excellent brunch, and then to Scheveningen and along the beach and through the dunes until the sun began to set. At which point, we hopped on buses to reach the Hook of Holland port, and boarded a ferry back to the UK.
A minor chanterelle emergency in nearby woodlands. But this is the beginning - more are definitely coming. Some very nice birch boletes, and a load of big amethyst decievers as well. Plus one of my fave very weird mushrooms aesthetically, the white saddle - in exactly the same spot I found them last year. On the fence about whether to eat these. There does not seem to be consensus.
ODS Co-op came to KDY! A productive week of coworking and channelling Co-op money into all of my favourite local businesses. And some braw sunrises and evening wandering.
Also loads of other fun things. Weird bobbly guys. Orange grisette (yum! first amanita I've actually eaten, after excessive amounts of double checking. Sweet and mushroomy), tiniest russula, some way past it ceps, my first common inkcaps, and even some oysters. This is all essentially on my doorstep.
Visiting C, B&G left, and I had an afternoon for a breather before my Co-op colleagues started to arrive.
A wee forage for chanterelles, amethyst deceivers, and a fun box to ID.
Finished, finally, Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. I'll probably read it again tbh.
Open Data Services Co-op coworking meeting in the small seaside town I call home! It felt extremely positive and we moved forward with shared understanding around governance structures and business strategy. Lots of work to do to use this momentum to help us develop though.
Some next level beach sunrises. I can't believe that every day we have the opportunity to witness this incredible cosmic spectacle, and most people choose to sleep through it. After two years, it's still leaving me breathless.
A bag of shaggy inkcaps just on the way into town. 1kg of chanterelles in the dryer at G&S (turned into 160g). Very unusual boletes near a carpark.. under birch, but with very scaly and chunky stems, so 99% sure not birch boletes.
A good haul of beautiful purple wood blewits from Ravenscraig Park.
Various wild mushrooms on toast, pizza and omelette. Also many apple crumbles.
Donated bag of figs at the Community Kitchen of course meant... homemade fig rolls! But completely improv in the end as we had essentially none of the correct ingredients. Apparently they turned out fine, but I had to leave before they finished baking.
Really enjoying these pink flowers that are blooming from a wildflower mix. Tons of things have self seeded in my fishing crates - a mix of the pink wallflowers and rocket/mustard greens, I think. A tiny romanesco yield. Another beautiful artichoke.
Inordinate quantities of rocket, and the tomatoes are still coming. So we cooked a whole load up with celery and onion and made it into a kind of vaguely unpleasant rocket passata. It's alright when mixed with other stuff though!
Hallowe'en themed baking at the Community Kitchen, so I made spooky ghost cupcakes (coconut and cranberry), oozing blood (raspberry) chocolate peanut butter cups, and a mutant spider army (fruit/nut/cocoa energy balls).
Nice grey mushrooms that I eventually concluded to be clouded agaric/funnel (I even did a spore print) but didn't get confidence in time to eat them. There were a lot though. And a new spot for massive pile of great condition wood blewits. Loads of fun things coming up in the cemetery; mostly waxcaps and friends, but also shaggy parasols and blushing agaricus.