Looking

I spent the morning enjoying an excellent guided "fungi walk" organised by the Friends of the Porter Valley in Sheffield.
This was pure escapism, and wonderfully therapeutic - all that absorption in tiny details, delicate structures, interesting pieces of info about habitats in Endcliffe Park.  This is a heavily-used outdoor space, but one that still offers quiet, hidden corners.
The City Council ecologist was leading the walk; I was heartened to find that this post has not been axed during all the phases of cutbacks and "austerity" of the last ten years.  He has clearly been in the post for many years, and consequently was able to offer a wealth of information.  Apart from talking about the various fungi we found, he also took us to some of the oldest and grandest trees in the park - a veteran ash, for instance, and an enormous spreading oak.