Friday 7 September 2012

The hunt is on


What a great autumn this is shaping up to be.  I have high hopes for many romps through the newly carpeted woodland around here, knife in pocket, ready to pounce on unsuspecting mushrooms.

A couple of years ago, I did a whole post - in real time - about one single mushroom hunt, to illustrate the whole point of the exercise, which is to place oneself in a completely different and focused state of mind, rather like some active form of meditation.  The mushrooms are a bonus - if you find any.

I would imagine that under-water sports divers have a similar experience, but a little more magnified by limited oxygen and the constant demands made on them in the simple process of trying to stay alive.  My car mechanic regularly goes diving  (usually in the warm waters off the Egyptian coast) and he says that the best thing about being down there is that nobody can call you up on the phone. I think that must be one of the most under-stated justifications ever given for a leisure-persuit I have ever heard, but he does have more than his fair share of testosterone.

For the past few years, a combination of poor harvests and clay-shooting have severely limited my woodland walks, but this year I have decided to pretty much give up shooting for the 'season', and I have a sneaky feeling that those pesky mushrooms think it is now safe to pop their heads above ground.

I may even go up to my ex-girlfiend's huge estate (yes, I know, I should have married her) in the Scottish Highlands, where bumper crops of edible fungi are as predictable as snow in Northern Ontario.  She gave me a copy of the best identification book for mushrooms ever written, and against each photo there is a little hand-written note stating when and where a specimen was found.

When we went to her wedding up there (yes, I know, it should have been me) in the huge house overlooking their private loch, we flew to Glasgow and picked up a Mercedes hire car for £12 a day, then drove another 3 hours - only about 3 hours because we caught a ferry across a small stretch of water which cut the journey by 2 hours.

H.I. had always said that she hated Scotland, and I never knew why since up until that point, she had never been there.  As we drove through the breath-takingly gorgeous glens and battlefields, flanked by heather-tinted mountains and peat-black lochs, she quietly said, "This place is really beautiful."

I had been telling her that for about 40 years.

18 comments:

  1. Scotland is beautiful. That photo would make a wonderful painting.

    You are bang on about mushroom hunting. For us kids it was being able to romp through the Black Forest with our Grandmother knowing that if we were successful, we had her wonderful mushroom soup to look forward to.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That (ripped-off and uncredited) photo is of Glencoe - the site of a terrible massacre in the early 18th century. I'm sure it has been painted many times before, and ended up as 'Monarch of the Glen' on many a Boots wall.

      Black Forest? Military background, or German? Good job it wasn't the Ukraine - you might not have lived beyond about 10.

      Delete
  2. My daughter, Tenpin, did her 'Night Diving Certificate' off the coast of Egypt. Not much to see at night.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are promised four days of rain next week. If it happens, and it really pours, we should be having mushrooms around 22nd-25th Sept. My fingers are crossed.

      Delete
    2. She probably wondered why she had to go to Egypt for a 'Night Driving' advance course.

      Delete
  3. Snow in northern Ontario... you've been here, then?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I went there specifically to carve snow, and there was none on the day of our arrival. My host said, "The snow will be here by tomorrow". It was.

      Delete
  4. Scotland is really beautiful and I adore the Isle of Skye. There is an exquisite restaurant there called The Three Chinmeys, which uses wonderful local produce and has amazing views.Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sigh... Sigh and the whole world sighs with you, Suzanne. I've never been to Skye, but I remember this little ditty:

      "I've just come doon from the Isle of Skye,
      wi' me pants doon low an' me kilt held high.
      an' all the lassies as I go by, cry
      Donald where's yer troosers?!"

      I hope that brought back fond memories.

      Delete
    2. Ha ha ! Thankfully, I didn't have the pleasure!

      Delete
  5. Two of the Three Sisters of Glencoe. Taken from the Rannoch Moor end. On a very rare clear day.

    Fond memories indeed. Fuelled by more than the odd wee dram.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Scotland...on my bucket list of places to see some day. As for mushrooms, ours are gone for the year...good luck!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sadly the odd wee has been done. Gilpin Family Whisky. Don't look it up.

    I'll be sticking to Ardbeg. Och aye the noo.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Iain Banks visits Bath this month. How I wish I had been on his distillery trip, but that's another story. He's right about the 'burning rubber' taste of Laphroaig though. I like the Juras though - the pale one in particular. Springbank too. Och aye the bloody noo indeed.

      Delete
  8. I'd love to visit Scotland, too. I've been in Wales, England, and Ireland, but not yet to Scotland. Would also like to see the Isle of Man.

    ReplyDelete