Mud in my gold shoes

My foraging shoes!

Today was a sunny Sunday with nothing on the cards.

So after losing at squash and a quick swim, I walked home through the university, via the lovely old graveyard behind the geography building (which is a wonderfully-kept secret), and Hyde Park – or Woodhouse Moor, depending on how long you've lived in Leeds.

With the gold and red autumn leaves, it was a wonderful walk back, browsing under hedgerows, through the leaf litter and behind the odd grave... I got some funny looks from people – and got a shoeful of mud.

The first thing I found was a lovely shaggy cap (pictured below) in the grass – very edible and very easy to identify.

A Shaggy Inkcap

I also found some other edibles, like the lilac-coloured mushrooms that I think are wood blewits, but could perhaps be Lepista Sordida.

And some huge, perfectly-formed and rather impressive Clouded Funnel, mushrooms, which are said to be edible, but are known to cause gastric upset in some people, so I'm putting those to the back of the fridge for a few days, until I feel confident/brave enough to try a little piece...

On Friday after work I also stumbled across some huge swathes of the wonderfully-named Shaggy Scalycaps, which are alas, inedible...

Tomorrow night, I'll be cooking up a chicken and wild mushroom pie. Recipe and images (and verdict) to come soon...

After the forage: muddy soles — my feet were worse