Over 3,000 species of fungi grow in this country and many of them are good to eat.

I WAS sitting on the terrace of a hotel enjoying some autumn sunshine when a bird walked over my foot. It was a bit startling. A family of pied wagtails were busily working the terrace searching for whatever it is pied wagtails regard as food.

I WAS sitting in front of the computer but instead of concentrating on the screen I was looking sideways out of the window, staring rather vacantly at a neglected meadow, hoping for inspiration.

A FRIEND and neighbour of mine owns a farm on which there are several hundred beautiful mature trees. He loves them but recently they have cost him rather a lot of money.

THE other morning I woke early in my bunk on the boat and I did what I always do first thing in the morning —- I pulled back the curtain to check on the weather.

THE other evening I was sitting on my patio enjoying a glass of chilled white wine before dinner. It was warm and still and this is my favourite time of day, when work is finished and it’s time to relax.

I WENT fishing the other day. Fly fishing for trout in a small stocked lake. The day was hot, there was no breeze and the sun blazed down on a lake that looked as though it was filled with molten lead. These are not good conditions for catching trout.

I HAVE been adopted by a wild bird. Every time I go outside it appears within minutes and follows me around. It gets very close. It’s a rather odd sensation. The bird is an immature robin, still in its speckled baby plumage.

I WAS tidying up the small pond on the patio — taking out the algae that had grown in the warm weather and weeding the margins — and I noticed the number of goldfish had dwindled down to one, a plump yellow fish that had become rather reclusive, spending most of its time in deep meditation under a fringe of aubretia that had grown down into the water.

IF you have a vegetable garden May and June are the months when the weeds try to take it over. They seem particularly aggressive this year, probably because May was rather wet and the soil is still holding a lot of moisture. So I’m spending time using the hoe, or on my knees hand-weeding the spots where the hoe is too indiscriminate a weapon. This year, however, I have a new interest. I’m looking out for the forget-me-not shield bug.