Picture the scene:
It's a fresh, bright autumnal day here in Northern Ireland. The neighbourhood is just waking up, and I'm out strolling with my hub, lifting my face to the sky and generally soaking up as many rays before the big fireball in the sky heads off on its winter hols 'til April.
And I am stopped dead in my tracks by a dewy lawn sparkling in front of me.
But it's not the dew, or the lawn, that are calling to me. It's the gargantuan array of fungi spreading before me.
Now, being an opportunistic sort, my raccoon-like senses started tingling. Here was a whole weekend-full of free dyeing waiting to be gathered.
It being early, I didn't want to ring the owner's doorbell, so I slipped a card through their door requesting to be let loose.
More excited than it's really reasonable to be at the prospect of them calling to say it was OK, I headed back to the house and got together a foraging pack - sealable plastic bags, gloves, camera, that sort of thing.
Generously, the owners called and I'm almost embarrassed to tell you quite how fast I legged it around to their lawn and started collecting.
My favourite (and I haven't boiled this up yet) was this tiny orange 'shroom.
This one looked evil. It gave off a thick, black ooze. NOT nice. But I got three bags of it.
Some were spectacular in their detail.
Others, just down-right rude.
"I hope you took an identification book!" I hear you cry.
Well, no.
Here's why. Recently, (when arriving home in the wee small hours, just a little tipsy) I wrenched some peculiar looking fungi from my own lawn and threw them in a pot with some fibre for a good boil.
Wanting to know whether I'd been dicing with death with this particular fungi, I sent pictures of the blighter to a friend and fellow Guild member who's a botanist and general experty type person at Queen's University.
After much study, her considered opinion was that it might be a safe one, or .... could be as deadly as the death cap.
So we settled on this conclusion: Treat every fungi like it's gonna kill you. That way, you've got a fighting chance (and maybe an interesting colourway).
So I set to work boiling up huge pans of stinky, slimy, gelatinous goup and huddling over them like some old witch, all the time washing everything within range with a fervent paranoia unless I poisoned myself and the one I love.
And the results? Five pieces of mid-beige/browny/creamy/peachy/yellowy coloured bits of roving.
Were the end results worth it? NOPE.
Will I do it again? You know I will, because a spend-thrift and a freebie can never be parted!
Oh, my raccoon-senses are tingling again. I think I hear a skip being unloaded a few miles off. Catch you later.......