Firstly thank you all so very much for your kind and thoughtful comments, emails and direct messages wishing Toby a happy birthday. He had a lovely afternoon full of the simple pleasures that make him happiest; balloons, cake, lego, sensory toys, curry for dinner, salted caramel ice-cream for pudding and a ‘disco’ in the evening – he likes dancing by himself with the lights off and the disco ball on. I popped a couple of pictures of him taken on his birthday at the end of the previous post.

Talking of simple pleasures, I indulged in one of my favourites earlier this week when I took myself off for an autumn wood walk. Because we’ve had a lot of rain here recently I thought that it might be a good year for fungi and I was not disappointed.  I have never seen quite so many different types out in the woods and spent a very happy 3 hours wandering around with my camera and getting wet, muddy knees at Danemead wood, Broxbourne common and Cowheath wood. There’s a mix of habitats there: deciduous woodland with oaks and hornbeams; a large area of pine woods and small areas of heathland and it was very peaceful with just the sounds of birdsong and the breeze ruffling the treetops and persuading the dying leaves from the branches.

I tried to name all the different funghi but have given up because it’s so hard to identify most of them. A few though are easy – like the yellow staghorn which looks like a fairy campfire glowing in the undergrowth; the false deathcap that has a weird almost luminous greenish glow and the iconic fairytale fly agaric with it’s white spotted bright red cap. Each is beautiful in their own unique way, even though some are very poisonous!

There are also some great pictures I’d like to show you of the fox, who is still a regular garden visitor, but I think with all of these woodland pictures I’ve run out of space here today, so I’ll save those for next time. Have a great weekend and if you get time please leave me a comment below and let me know what seasonal delights you’re enjoying in your part of the world.