Autumn in the country

I've been round and about recently and regular readers of my blog will know that I post a lot of mushroom pictures at this time of year. I find it fsacinating how the fruiting bodies appear overnight; their varieties; the difficulties people have in identifying them definitively; that some can kill you with a single glance.

Here are a few of my favourite fungal finds:

I was in Dorset for a couple of days last week, looking after Fergus while J was doing an Aga course especially tailored for men who haven't done much cooking before and now have a bit more time on their hands. Actually these days he finds himself doing most of the cooking chez nous, as I'm often too busy in the afternoons and evenings, but he did pick up plenty of Aga tips.

We stayed in a beautiful barn conversion in the middle of nowhere, with just a couple of farms dotted about, and a small village up the road. It was idyllic and so quiet, a world away from how most people live in London, and it made me think of the conversation I had with someone a few weeks ago. We were collecting Fergs from his holiday accommodation and, while J used the toilet inside the house, I made this opening conversational gambit on the doorstep:

Me: "It's so lovely and peaceful here."

Her: "Yes. We are lucky but people want to build new houses here. Britain is full."

Me: (a little taken aback and wondering whether this was a dogwhistle, but deciding I'd ignore it) "Well. it's really not. Outside the M25 it's really quite enpty. And people need homes."

Her: "Well, they can all stay there, then."

Leaving the house I looked around at the estate built probably in the 1970s and mused that the original residents of the Victorian cottages in the village had probably said the same thing about her house. It's like that Stewart Lee "Comin' over 'ere" routine.

I could not help feeling a bit resentful of the space and the fresh air people have, that some seem to think is rightfully theirs and not to be shared by anyone else.

I am not keen on spiders. I know that this is irrational and I know that they do nothing but good but they do have rather too many legs for my comfort. I know this is speciesism. I'm sorry.

I was sitting in my bathrobe here in Norfolk the other morning when my peripheral vision picked up the slight creeping movement of a large spider (I'm guessing a diameter of about 3cm) coming round my towelling sleeve. I screamed and shook the spider off. She landed on my bed between my headboard and my mattress. It was a bit disconcerting thinking that she's be crawling over my face that evening but I did try and make myself imagine how it must have felt to find a cosy place to shelter from the cold and rain outside, only to be propelled suddenly and unexpectedly away to somewhere alien.

Coming back to Beckenham the following day I jumped in the shower and noticed too late that I had dislodged a large spindly-type spider, sheltering in the dark-tiled corner, who was now struggling under the onslaught of warm water on the white porcelain shower tray. I watched her try valiantly again and again to escape, only for her slight body to be thwarted by another falling wet missile. How she was not washed away to drown in the drain was beyond me.

It was too late to attempt any rescue so I quickly finished showering and left her lifeless body, legs everywhere, in the shower. How heavy was my heart at my part in the manslaughter of this tiny, mute soul. I went to bed almost moved to tears.

The next morning, grasping the nettle, I looked for the poor spider and she was no longer in the shower. Somehow she had the resilience to pick herself up, dry herself off and start all over again, and there she was in the corner of the shower. A couple of days later and she'd disappeared, a temporary guest, badly mistreated.

And that made me think of this poem:

Mimesis

by Fady Joudah

My daughter
                        wouldn’t hurt a spider
That had nested
Between her bicycle handles
For two weeks
She waited
Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said
It will simply know
This isn’t a place to call home
And you’d get to go biking

She said that’s how others
Become refugees isn’t it?

Here are more autumn pics. No spiders.