The photo below, is a cropped version of one I took a year ago today. Blewits!
Reading back to the post "Strange Skies" written on that evening, I noticed that I had omitted to post any photo of this delicately hued and very edible species.
<<< These were a little slug munched but their natural composition was fun. In fact I took several more edible specimens home with me and had very tasty blewit omelettes over the following days.
The ground was indeed very wet around beech tree bases and human & canine feet, but at least there were edible fungi. I doubt very much I would find any today had I been able to go over and see. As I have written before about this years fungal culinary delights, only one golf ball sized puff ball all year. Last year I was picking them almost daily over a few consecutive months. Not even a single Parasol mushroom (except for some very slug consumed leftovers and that also goes for the few boletus and lactarius I've found. I never thought I would ever ... be envious of slugs!
That day, a year ago, was fairly mild but as the post title states, the skies were indeed strange. Very layered at times almost oppressive cloud formations and looking eastwards what began to look more like a sunset than a midday solar lightening in areas of sky.
Now ... I will freely admit to having "auto corrected the last two photographs, simply to show you the contrast in the contours of the land ... had the day been sunnier than it was.
The next shot is of a view looking across the valley. A very deep, steep sided, long valley that used to have two working collieries, a quarry and a brick works on the valley floor.
More about the Llanerch and Blaenserchan collieries sometime next year. It is a valley that has not been regenerated artificially and the deep and long lasting scarring is slowly succumbing to nature slowly re-seeding and year by year it becomes a more pleasant place to explore. Something I have not done this year, so I look forward to noticing the changes when we venture down there in the forthcoming year, camera as ever, ready!
Even in this brightened photograph one can see what may seem here, small slag heaps, but walk down along the valley floor and they just tower above you. I first explored this area when Ffin was a young pup and was quite dismayed (yet also intrigued) by the amount of rubbish that has just been left where buildings were knocked down and left as heaps of rubble. Remains of piping, wire, parts of machinery and yet interestingly the old washery (a strangely shaped concrete structure) has been left standing, an oddity left all by itself.
Not a great photo I know, it was taken from on top of the valley a year ago, so given zoom, plus photo edit, it's not very clear here but it stands out like some huge funnel, the concrete slowly weathering having been blasted by the elements for some thirty or more years. It is now "guarded" (ha-ha) by "Keep Clear" signs and also new, shiny aluminium barriers! What is almost laughable is the fact that, there is no-one to enforce these restrictions. For me, they just spoil a photographic opportunity. I'd rather take photo's of how it was just after the mine closures. But there was another photo taken that day, which at first for me didn't seem worth putting on my blog, an auto corrected, almost rejected ...
mid November ... swirl of brightly coloured oak leaves.
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