After some debate over whether what we were finding really were chantarelles, or the similar looking, but rather less tasty and occasionally hallucinogenic false chantarelles we have finally given them a go. We'd gone to visit one of our friend Viv's old lichen hunting grounds near Glen Coe and were clambering around old mossy woods near a disused crypt when we found a few good patches of them hiding in amongst the fallen autumn leaves. Luckily with our edible mushroom expert to hand we were able to confirm they were the real thing and gathered a few dozen to take home with us. Chantarelles have to be one of the prettiest mushrooms there are. So brightly coloured, they can be hard to spot as they are alsmost the same colour as the leaves they hide in. They have a very distinctive fruity smell, like apricots. There are a few other distinguishing features, the gills separate into twos or three and occasionally rejoin, I believe doesn't the false chantarelle gills ever rejoin. They also are a more irregular shape, although until I've seen a false one I'm not sure how obvious this would be. As yet I'm still cooking the wild mushrooms I ...

This is the final post from the UK tour, things will be back to normal from here, less of the random traveling waffle and a return to recipes and rants. Colonsay was the last island stop on our tour, we had intended to go further, but the WWOOFing season finishes earlier than we expected, we couldn't find anywhere to take us on the whole western side of Scotland except for one week at the very end of September meaning we'd have a two week gap to fill. Unexpected stays at B+Bs, and a lack of wwoofing opportunities meant we were flying well over our budget, the weather just seemed to get worse and worse, we kept getting attacked by ticks, both picked up a nasty cough and decided something was trying to tell us to go home. Only a little earlier than planned and it means hopefully Andy should be able to get his thesis written before the new year, so it's all good. Plus it's been sunny down here. Hurrah! Although all I want it to do now is rain so the mushrooms will come, a woods we'd visited a while ago which was full of them was completely ...

Jura is great. Not sure what it is, it just has a tense yet calm atmosphere about it. Perhaps it was anticipation of knowing we were going to visit the place Orwell chose to write 1984 and also the site of Bill Drummond and the KLF's burning of £1 million that led to me feeling pretty inspired by the place. We'd been staring longingly over from Islay for the last 4 days at the "Paps", the aptly named breast shaped mountains that dominate the landscape and ended up leaving a day early to get to them. They must have called us over. Sneaky things really as they disappeared the day we got there into the descended clouds that didn't clear again til we left. Very cheeky. It's described as one of the last great wildernesses. It's a fair size, yet only has 200 inhabitants who are outnumbered 25:1 by deer. There's just the one road, running across the bottom and up the east of the island and nowhere else. If you wanted to go anywhere else you'd have to walk over rough ground. It's not like the peak district, there's no paths or styles, you just make your own way and ...

We're back from the wild! For various reasons we've come home a bit earlier than intended and are now on our 3 month European city break, in Liverpool, staying at our lovely 5 star self catering apartment on the Wirral (AKA Andy's Mum and Dad's). Here's the first of a three part round up of the last leg of the British tour, Islay. Jura and Colonsay coming soon. Just across from Kintyre, Islay is probably the biggest island we went to. We spent a fair amount of our time there in a B+B as Andy was ill and it rained everyday. It was strange being in a B+B when we'd been used to either tent or random hospitality from strangers. I realise this is how some people make a living, but the concept of having to pay someone £165 just to sleep in a bed for three nights and eat beans and scrambled eggs once a day seemed crazy. It must actually cost them all of about £5 per day. I don't think they were really doing it to make ends meet as some places clearly do either, the house was well posh. AND they charged us £5 to do ...

Mushroom season is here. Hurrah! I'm not sure if it's normal, but the floors up here seem to be carpetted with them too, hurrah! We've seen over 55 different types so far. I'm thinking of starting a new section on here devoted to my little friends, so if I can work out how to do it I'll be posting all the different types we find plus notes on edibility, habitat etc.  But obviously don't believe anything I say, we use three different books, which though generally a good mix, cross referenced say different things sometimes and I don't want to be responsible for anyone else's poisoning. The books we are currently using are the Collins Gems "Mushrooms", which is great, has good, clear pictures, pretty much all the common things you are likely to see and references similar mushrooms things can be confused with, then "Mushrooms" by Roger Phillips, which is really comprehensive, but maybe a little too much so when you're just starting out, it's best to look for things in the little book first and then check there's nothing else simlar in this one. We also have the River Cottage "Mushrooms" (all these people clearly spend days trying to ...