If you walk through a forest at any time from august to november, and maybe even beyond, you're bound to see these little fellows peeping up all over the place.



Sometimes they are thin, amazingly delicate mushrooms, quite alien and yet recogniseable. They are deserving of reverence, as one touch from some of them could mean death.



The mushrooms you see on the top of the soil aren't actually the plant itself, they are the fruit that sends forth millions of spores into the air, creating yet more little mushrooms next year. The parent plant itself can run for many metres underground in every direction, some enormous fungal systems have been shown to run for miles and their systems work in harmony (symbiosis) with surrounding plants, creating the perfect environment for them to flourish. That's kindness in action.



This is, as far as I can tell, a Beechwood Sickener. As its name suggests it is found in beech woods and can cause some rather nasty side effects. I left this one be.



Whereas these bracket fungus look rather fae, and although I'm not hugely into faeries, I could imagine the odd little fae creature living beneath the shelter that one of these fungus could afford.



Then there are the plain white ones, growing rather higgldy-piggldy amongst a mass of leaf litter. Their smooth caps and delicate colouring evoke textures of softest silk and the colour of pure wool.



This is possibly the prettiest mushroom I saw on my journey. The pattern on its cap is intricate and beautiful, as if it had broken out of a toffee-coloured glaze to show its white flesh underneath.



And lo and behold, having come back from my walk around a local estate, what do I come home to find? Our own patch of mushrooms growing completely of their own accord in our own garden! I love to imagine that they are a delicacy, some wonderfully-flavoured fungi that we could tuck into. I'm not brave enough to identify it, and not fool-hardy enough to try it [never advised], so I'm going to leave them all there, where I can take photos of them until they disappear. Perhaps to come up again next year.



However, I was very pleased to tuck into normal field mushrooms from our local greengrocer and make this wonderful pie last night to share between the two of us, with a glass of mulled apple juice (yes, it's that time again) and the warmth of the first central-heating use of this season.