Tales from the Wild Wood: BBC4

[chris]

Oops sorry forgot

Just off out the door - I'll pop on when I'm at home heh

[Mikey]

I've just found a house in need of a lot of work surrounded by roughly 3 acres of woodland, near town but far enough away to feel semi rural. Now all I need to do is persuade the missus.

[veggiechicken]

Give it to her as a Chr****as present - Oooer - I mean the house!!

[veggiechicken]

All this talk of woods - here are a few photos from my little patch today

The last photo is a sweet chestnut that I've found today No chestnuts though - squirrels?
Any volunteers for coppicing?

[Mikey]

Ummmmmm. No.

I showed the other half the house and she said not on your nellie. Not in a good area, apparantly. How bad an area is a wood?

Sweet Chestnut, lucky thing VC, any mushrooms there?

I emailed the forestry commission on Friday to see if they'd give me permission to pick mushrooms in a couple of our local woods. Hopefully I'll here back this week.

[veggiechicken]

Shame about the house, Mikey! There'll be another one along soon.
Just put a few woodland fungi photos on my blog - haven't identified them though. I think the first two are some sort of puffball. There were very few fungi actually - I had hoped for more, but I didn't have time to do a thorough explore.
Good idea about the FC woods - maybe they'd prefer you not to have asked the question!
Getting excited!!

[Mikey]

See this is why I need to go on the course, they all look edible to me. I'd have gone with puffballs for the first two, the third and fourth I thought looked a bit like a false chanterelle, but the wrong colour. The 5th looks like a mushroom.

The last one on your garden blog I think is a jews ear, the third looks familiar, but I can't remember the name.

3 days and counting.

I had a look on the woodland trust site, and they allow you to check for woods in your area, and tell you who owns them. I had 7 within a 5 mile radius, which I thought was good. I'm not sure what FC will say about permission, they'll probably say nothing and hope I go way.

[veggiechicken]

"Tales from the Wild Wood" Episode 2 tonight at 8.30 BBC4.
Compulsory watching for me!!

[Mikey]

Watched this on BBC 4 last night, it was on kinda late but I does like it.

I'm not sure I'll look at a wood in quite the same way again, the coppiced Yew that had been coppiced for several thousand years humbled me. The man giant almost brought me to tears, and I've become really keen to know where in South Wales Strawberry Wood is, he does like to travel about a bit.

[veggiechicken]

Glad you saw it, Mikey. its my favourite wood-type programme at the moment.
The actual wood is near Llanthony but is NOT the Gwent Wildlife Trust wood, as I first thought, but is adjacent to it. Gwent Wildlife Trust
I did think it a bit strange that a Wildlife Trust would let an amateur play fast and loose with their wood.

[Mikey]

Its quite nice up there, I wouldn't have considered it in gwent though as its quite a way above Abergavenny. I'd have thought it was Monmouthshire, thats the problem with Wales, every time we have a new government in Westminster they jiggle the boundaries. One minute its Powys the next its Brecon and Radnor, then back to Powys again.

[Mikey]

I just had a thought, perhaps its not them its us, more counties = more money?

Perhaps we are very good at confusing them, we must be it confuses me.

[veggiechicken]

Its all quite simple really.
DELETED!!!
Straightforward, innit

[Mikey]

Sshh, there's no need to explain.

[veggiechicken]

Explanation deleted at your request