Alone, not lonely

It really is that season of mists and the other thing. The hills around town were hidden by it this morning  and the promise they made about sun later in the day is being fulfilled.

It is time to pack up your bucket and spade and say goodbye to the residents of the rock pool you have been dreaming in for the last two timeless weeks. When you return next year it will all be the same, but different. So will you.

We spent a whole week on a beach in Cuba, watching a gargantuan, Russian lorry-driver of a man cure himself by lying and kneeling on the sand, spreading his colossal arms around in wide sweeps and rearranging it into random patterns and piles. He spent about 5 hours a day completely on his own and completely absorbed in his own personal sandpit. I truly admired him for being a 40 year old who could revert to childhood at will, knowing how good it would make him feel when the sun went down.

You have to be on your own to mend yourself like this. He may have had a family - wife and demanding children - but if he did, they amused themselves by going into town to shop or whatever, leaving him to get lost in his own thoughts, or just to be rid of all thought for a few precious hours.

Mushroom hunts are like that. A couple of times I have made the mistake of taking other people with me. There is no cure in that.

Mushroom hunters are not as secretive as they pretend to be. No matter how much you like someone - or maybe because you like them -  it is difficult to tell them to go away and leave you alone for a while. Some would not understand.