Fruity!

September was an exceptional month for fruits, both wild and domestic, but after gallons of rain, the blackberries are about finished. The wild berries are everywhere, waiting for the winter birds to arrive from the North.

In Cambridgeshire, this week is when the villages hold their Apple Days. They sell all sorts of vaguely related produce, celebrate the older varieties and they will make juice for you, pressed from your own apples. Our own apple tree is a bit of an oddity. Using sturdy stock for the trunk, it has had two types of tree grafted onto it. One produces eaters, and the other, cookers. Sadly, only about two of each. However, it also produces two big bunches of mistletoe, which is far more valuable than the apples, if you want a good snog at Christmas.

After a dry summer, a long, warm, wet autumn is ideal for producing mushrooms and other fungi. I don't think I have ever seen as many around here.

When I was younger, I would have been cooking up all sorts of dishes with wild fungi. These days, Hanna rules the kitchen and she's a bit wary. All the same, toadstools make great subjects for photography. I'm just amazed at how many of the fungi I see have been kicked over. There must be some sort of primal urge going on there; after all, they do seem a bit spooky. Its not just their deathly pallor and the way they shun the light, but also the way they pop up out of the ground, all in one night.