A Sliding Doors Moment

 

On Friday, I was out walking with two friends.  It was a five mile country ramble which we know well.

Being women of a certain age, we have noted the most discreet place to visit the bushes should the need arise. On this particular walk, there’s only really one opportunity - where the footpath skirts a wood, there’s a gap in the hedge, and a private path into the wood.  This has provided us with a useful convenience many times in the past. 

On Friday, as we approached the wood, however, there was already something there.  Parked just in front of our gap was a tractor.  Behind the tractor was a substantial trailer. Sitting on hay bales in the trailer were the children of a nursery school, accompanied by an almost equal number of adults.

As we watched, the farmer let down the flap at the back of the trailer and the people climbed down and made their way into the wood, by the very path we would normally take. 

‘They must be doing a nature trail!’

‘Just think though, what if it had happened in the other order?’

‘You mean if we’d got there first?’

‘…and were having a wee when an entire class of children arrived?’

‘Can you imagine? – “Mummy, what’s that lady doing???”’

We concluded that it would have still been an educational experience for them, just in a very different way.

 

 

 

foraging discipline

A rich variety of family illness and other crises has disrupted our autumn. I feel like I'm in a time travel movie, surfacing to find that another fortnight has somehow zipped past.

However foraging has anchored my feet to the ground once more. The best time for chestnuts and mushrooms is now.

Nigel and I were busy catching up on neglected chores.   Yet if we did not go now to the woods, we would miss the harvest.

We went up to Ashridge and sure enough the ground in the woods was scattered with sweet chestnut cases like green sea urchins. To save my fingers, I've learned to open them with my booted feet, and imagine this must be similar to what deer do with their hooves, as they too are clearly partial to the odd chestnut. 

I filled my pockets with the gleaming prizes until it was hard to walk. 

Meanwhile Nigel was stooping to gather puffballs. We've become cautious about mushrooms, but puffballs are completely unlike anything poisonous.

The chestnuts form part of our Christmas meal each year, but the puffballs were delicious right away with gnocchi. 

But even more than the food we gain, I value the therapeutic effect of foraging. After a morning in the rust and amber woods, rhythmically hunting and collecting, I was restored and ready to deal with whatever happens next.