With a flourish of Phil’s pocket magnifying lens, a suckered tentacle stares back at me, an iridescent grey white. It looks like it should be coiling around a shipwreck, not oozing out of a fallen beech near National Trust Ashridge Monument. I’m here with Phil McAustin, mycologist and wood specialist, on a thankfully sunny Wednesday…

Today myself and my young son found a freshly dead squirrel that had been shot in Linslade Woods. The eyes were still bright and clear, it was still flexible, and it didn’t smell. I chose to risk it and brought it home, where after some You Tube instruction I skinned it by cutting under the…

  Almost thought I had to go to the supermarket to get veg today, until I nabbed these beauties on the way back from the lake swim.  Not that the kid will eat them..I will still have to go to Tesco to get cucumber (sigh)…. Clockwise : Tansy (for bug repellent, hanging it up in…

A morning dip in the local lake …. Cool womb, Dark mirror. What lies beneath That satin skin? Bright foil As ducks come down, Reeds, Submerged branches Waiting like a petrified forest For divers. Thrill of fear Fathoms deep; Of mouths with teeth. Brim with life, with death. I cut you, I caress you From…

Tasted great after 6 days, tangy and delicious in a turmeric  and prawn root soup with soya yoghurt… Only surprise was the sadly deceased ladybird I found once I was halfway through the jar. And the hair!!  Sorry! Apparently fermented guillemot birds were buried under mud and considered a wedding feast delicacy in Iceland however,…

Today I harvested handfuls of fresh juicy Cleavers, bursting with vitamins welcome after winter’s salted runner beans.   I decided on making Cleavers & Carrot Lacto-Ferment, the cleavers worked well last year with a phenomenal taste…I will return with the results. Cow Parsley (Anthriscus Sylvestris) and Hemlock (Conium maculatum) are also out side by side,…

Winter’s bite…. In blackest night grows the seed of Life Blue frost in our pleading veins we sink deep… Beneath snows, and wish for light to come again; but needful is this rest, this still; like death to life is needful the black earth womb to the seed of light. Winter’s bite; Reality, sometimes grim…

Miscanthus grass fronds with small cross sections of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) stem, bound with multi coloured wool 🙂

Stuck for nature-based things to do in miserable grey January?  Get out on a dry day with some secateurs and a bag and harvest some dried stems, fallen bark, seedheads…then back at base have a play glueing them to a piece of hardboard or canvas to create textural worlds of winter sensuality….try contrasting opposites such…

A finished (nearly!) pine needle basket made using short (4-5in) pine needles from several different species of trees..fiddly but fun, and very satisfying, and all you have had to pay for is a washer and some string!  I have dyed some of the needles with turmeric (the yellow ones) and used reddish needles and ivory…