If paradise is half as nice

...as the heaven you take me to, I'd rather have you


Yes, a wander in the  September woods on an afternoon of warm sunshine when fruit and fungi pop into your sight line  from every direction and the beech mast lies thick upon the moss, when yellow birch leaves drift from above to land on mushroom caps and the sturdy limbs of old oak trees stretch out to shade the sheep that browse along the field  margins, when hazelnuts hang cheek-by-jowl with next year's barely-begun catkins and blackberries gently ferment on the briar....
It's all too easy too easy to overwrite this stuff but for me the afternoon was crowned by the discovery of a perfect specimen of a cep, Boletus edulis, the jewel in any mycologist's crown. It's years since I found one since my local terrain is not generally fungus-friendly and this one was a classic: at the ideal stage of growth and, as it later turned out, perfect inside as well as out with not a single blemish or worm hole. It and another made a heavenly accompaniment to a simple dish of tagliatelle.
 Soon gone but the memories of a perfect afternoon remain.

Extras: Satan's boletus, a panther cap or its lookalike, a purple russula, beech mast,  hazel nut alongside rudimentary catkins.

Song by Amen Corner 1969