Fungi

I have noticed a lot of fungi about, and also there are more unusual species this year than what I usually see around here. Every time I walk Xena there is usually someone in the woods picking the mushrooms, so I think it has been a good year for them.

Today I decided to get some photos of fungi when I took Xena for a walk. There were lots about, but most of them were either damaged, kicked over, or awkwardly situated deep in the undergrowth. I did take a few photos but when I got home and loaded them up on my computer they were all blurry. I think my shutter speed was too low for the low light conditions, and also I think I was too close and exceeding the minimum focal distance of the lens. After a cup of coffee I decided to go back out again and just do better...packed up my camera bag and walked back through the woods again.

I went back to where I had photographed two really lovely species of mushrooms, which were in pristine condition, but by the time I got back there, probably an hour later, they were trampled on and no good to photograph :(  I hunted around and found this little beauty, about the only undamaged mushroom in the woods! 

My golf clinic this week was cancelled as the coach is ill with a bad flu, as were two of the other coaches, so the ladies clinics had to be cancelled today. There is a bad flu going around, inevitable after our immune systems are weaker after avoiding people during the pandemic years. I have my flu jab booked for later this month, this year the date you are allowed to get it (if you are not over 65 or vulnerable) via the NHS has been made later than usual - doesn't make sense when they are predicting a high case of colds and flu this winter following on what happened in Australia this winter.

I have book club tonight, looking forward to seeing everyone again as our last meeting was before the summer holidays. I am really enjoying Maggie O Farrell's new book, The Marriage Portrait. But then I will read anything she writes as I like her writing.

If you would like to see my photo book on Harris and Lewis, you can view it here