Its been pissing it down here too.
Did a shiitake and steak mince chilli, cooked enough for all week, plenty birds eye pepper, black pepper, fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria, that famous one with the red top and white spots, favourite habitat of elves and gnomes
..This must be dried overnight at a low heat in the oven to detoxify it, then it makes for a great source of medicine and spice.) Chucked in some peppery boletus (Chalciporus piperatus, a biting peppery hot poroid mushroom, having reddish tubes rather than gills, growing often with the fly agaric in a mycorrhizal association with silver birch trees.)
Got my eye on a growing puffball sprouting up from a nearby canal towpath, going mushroom hunting tomorrow after I pick up my meds. Should be able to bring back a nice spread of fungal goodies to fry up for supper as a side dish with the shiitake chilli.
Lots of rain makes for good mushroom-foraging time. Going to go get my morphine and oxy then go tramping through the local forests and golf course, hunting for, if I'm lucky, some sulfur polypore, various Russulas, milk caps (Lactarius spp. , some toxic, but some good edibles also to be found within this family, they have the notable characteristic of bleeding a milky liquid, sometimes changing color on contact with air, or certain chemicals, NaOH/KOH, ferric chloride, ferrous sulfate, ammonia, sulfovanillin and Meltzer's reagent are a good set for testing this family, and the Russulas)
On one of my last hikes, I even found a real rarity, although not an edible, Pisolithus tinctorius, its more common in the US but very, very seldom found here.
