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Chili Pepper

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  • Location
    Portsmouth, Hampshire
  • Interests
    Long walks with the dog, collecting wild (edible!) mushrooms and of course the weather

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  1. Thank you grab my graupels that is kind. I'm going to ask P3 how to do this as I am a bit of a techno-numpty....but I have mastered excel pivot tables - well the basics anyway.... CP
  2. If you want to increase your "pocket money" Stephen, I recommend you get a good book first! We don't want a repetition of what happened on the Isle of Wight recently.... In another thread somebody recommends the River Cottage Book of Mushrooms. I haven't seen it but you want a good photographic guide. We use Roger Philips Guide to wild mushrooms. If the mushroom you saw recently was big enough to sit on and assuming your are not an elf in real life :lol: then it was almost certainly a boletus of some sort or perhaps a parasol mushroom. I don't think this is "clicky" but if you google it you should be OK. Select images of: ceps (or penny bun), chanterelle, horn of plenty, orange birch bolete, bay bolete - these are the main ones we pick. I particulary love baby bay boletes as their caps are almost like brown suede..... We only ever collect mushrooms we know but luckily the most delicious cannot really be confused with anything else so you are safe. There is a highly edible mushroom called The Miller but because it can be easily confused with another lethal mushroom, Clitocybes so we leave it well alone Pepper was well up for a scrap with the mink and almost pulled me over straining on the lead - and she is only a little-ish Jack Russell cross - pretty fearless when it comes to furry things she can chase - cats, all rodents and foxes but a complete quivering jelly with all loud bangs - thunder, shotguns and fireworks mainly. I dread October/November every year. The little herberts around us set them off before it even gets dark. WHAT is the point of that? And during the season we have to go for walks in the woods well before 10am at the weekend because after that it is like the OK Corral up there with shotguns going off all over the place. No prizes for guessing where we are going this weekend! To the woods.....with a flask of hot coffee, hot bacon in a flask, bacon sarnie making materials, an empty basket and a very sharp pocketknife (for slicing off the mushroom stem bases - it saves a hell of a lot of work later)! And a camera....wish us luck Kind regards Chili
  3. Hi Stephen Chanterelle (or girolles in French) are delicious with a peppery taste and grow gregariously (ie in large groups) so when you find them you tend to get basketfuls - and we left loads behind even after we had picked the 3Kg.... They are very common (or so the books say) but P3 and I have never found them before in 15 years of mushroom picking mainly because our mushrooming spot where we used to live in Surrey is, like yours, very sandy and chanterelle like moisture and often grow in moss. So to find so many after so many years was indeed awesome! BTW your maths is correct! They are very abundant in Scotland and young boys supplement their pocket money by collecting them and selling on. You have to be careful though as there is a mushroom variety called false chanterelle which can do very nasty things to your innards. My sense of smell is pretty "carp" but true chanterelles smell strongly of apricots but only when you have a fair number to sniff at in my experience... Fatsia as a garden escape is not a problem down here but rhododendrens are an utter menace. And don't get me started on japanese knotweed - I've seen it forcing its way through concrete.... Talking of escapes P3 & I saw a mink down by the Meon last Spring - luckily Pepper, our Jack Russell cross, who saw it too, was temporarily on the lead due to her prediliction for disappearing down foxholes. I got a picture of it too but it isn't very good. They are absolute vicious killers and I think Pepper would have lost the scrap.... It would seem nearly all the chestnuts in Portsmouth have this dreaded canker as I've only seen one conker which is very sad. I will try and get some pictures this weekend and perhaps start a fungus thread? Kind regards Chili
  4. Hi Stephen, Well Autumn has defo started here in my part of the world. I went out with Paramendies 3 a week ago last Saturday to the woods over the hill - mushrooming basket at the ready - Nothing (well edible anyway). Went the following day with a neighbour to the same area but different parts, without the basket (sigh), and came back with: >3kg of Chanterelles (current retail price £6.95 - £7.95 for 150g delivered - you can do the maths!) 6 enormous but very young Orange Birch Boletes (beloved by E. Europeans but turn black when cooked) 7 Ceps of various sizes from tiny to tennis ball size A very large handful of Ameythst Deceivers (so plentiful we got fed up picking them but they look good when cooked with the chanterelles) We definitely hit the jackpot with the chanterelles but they were growing on an island in the middle of a lake which involved Paul and I having to carefully and precariously inch our way across the water on a fallen tree - but worth it. When we got home it took hours for P3, Paul and I to brush them clean...We should have sold them to the local restaurants but we were too greedy. We served them pan fried with organic free range scrambled eggs and then made a massive potato and chaterelle dauphinoise the next evening which fed three of us generously for two nights (and Paul & P3 are real trenchermen). Yummy! I did however, in a fit of generosity, give a big bowl to my neighbour to cook....she loved their peppery taste. The trees are just beginning to show signs of turning here in my part of Hampshire....I love this time of year. But what has happened to the Horse Chestnuts? Is it just me or are they looking particualry manky at the moment.....? And yes I can spot the Fatsia - it must love that spot to grow so big from seed. I planted one in our old garden and it turned into a bit of a botanical thug... If I can work out how to upload a picture I'll take some this weekend of our mycological finds...if you are interested Kind regards Chili
  5. Hi Viking, This is my second time of posting this message and pressed a wrong button and lost the entire post.... Grrrrr. anyway, Mr CP ( P3) very helpfully (not) pressed the send button on my last post and made me look like a complete t*at because the post was only in draft format whist I was watching The Antiques Raodshow....Yellow Pimpernel, Wild Garlic (whole swathes as far as the eye can see), cut-leaved geranium and massives of blubells whose smell is intoxicating when in the sun. It has all happened so suddenly and so early. Anyway, better go as P3 is sulking in the garden with a sci-fi book and wants to check his e-mails regarding his poll of Climate Scientists............... Kind regards CP P>S No Owls in Portsmouth/Southsea but did hear a pair of Log-Tailed Tits doing "tick-tock tick-tock" this morning.
  6. Hi acbrixton, The Lilac is just to reach its peak here ( in Southsea) too and I'm nearly knocked sideways by the perfume when I pass a flowering example in somebody's front garden. P3 (my other half) has been moved to start this post because we , as daily dog-walkers, have been gob-smacked how everything has started so early. In our small back garden, our Iceberg climbing rose is covered in buds and is about to erupt into flower. The climbing rose on the south side of the garden is rampanat and already flowering (sorry, forgetten it's name but bought from a family-run nursery in N. Norfolk - near S. Creake) with small pink flowers. The baby greengage tree, planted last year, has already flowered and has got about 20 little fruit which hopefully will result in a crop rather me having to pay a fortune in Southsea Fruit & Veg for a small bag of my favourite fruit. Also the newish-planted Medlar Nottingham (an apple variety cultivated since Tudor times and known as "feline-@rse" fruit for obvious reasons) is about to flower about 3-4 weeks early. The clematis plants are going bonkers (about 7ft high) apart from my Sieboldlina (sp?) But has really got me going are the wild flowers - these have been a passion with me since I was a young child and I'm a devouted fan of Keeble-Martin's book. When we go But as a talented
  7. OMG - Those poor people and just before Christmas too. There seems to be quite alot of structural damage too........what's really bizarre is I know Chamberlayne Road really well as my best friend used to live there......(the operative word being used to) CP
  8. Hello Dawlish et al, On the contrary, Paul (sorry, Dawlish), on the contrary - very, very good influence. He finds it mentally stimulating and to think I was the person who introduced him to this website in the first place and the concept of discussing "weather" ...... Have you seen the number of posts he has made since July? Anyway, I've been told to "foxtrot oscar" off the computer by Ferg so he can read some links he's found on Climate Science...........but thanks for your reponse Heh, heh right back at you Kind regards Chili (a dedicated Netweather "lurker") xxxxxx
  9. "You and SF know your stuff, here P3. I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that this is one of the best discussions currently on netweather." Hi Dawlish, To put this in to some sort of perspective what Fergus, ooppps sorry, Parmenides3, knew about this subject at the beginning of July would have fitted comfortably on the back of a fag packet. That's the power of the internet and the high standard of the level of debate on here from you guys............I can't get the wretched man off the ruddy computer!!! He never ceases to astound me..... Chili (P3's OH)
  10. I'm multishirking in the office at the moment but we are watching TS Chris very closely as we currently have a large cruise vessel in layup in Grand Bahama Shipyard and I believe she is being moved out the way at 1600 hours this afternoon...... Chili
  11. Hi Chaps, Thank you - I will pass on your regards. "ARRGGGHHHH" were not quite the first words past my beloved's lips when it happened. This raises some intersting speculation as to why he was turfed offline in the first place. Was it: a) His Herculean internet usage has melted the BT cable &/or :lol: He has managed to use up his ENTIRE monthly internet allowance in ten days flat Personally I'm leaning towards a) as BT says it is a cable "fault" Anyway, he has plenty to do at home but I know he would rather be frolicing around here desporting his little grey cells. Now, I must go as I have to get an 18ft long £130K crankshaft, £45K worth of pistons and a couple of cylinder heads from Manchester to Greece by Friday or we'll be on a three engine operation ...... again. Kind regards Fiona [P.S. Mods - Sorry this is so madly off topic - I'll shut up now!]
  12. Hi Dawlish / Summer Blizzard / Blast from the Past / Shuggee et al Just thought you ought to know there will be a stunning silence from Parmenides3 for a while as his broadband internet connection is kn*ckered. He was on the 'phone to BT this morning at eight o'clock trying to sort it out and was told he could be offline for up to three days He will be back as soon as possible ......talk about hooked! Kind regards Chili Pepper (aka Mrs Parmendies3)
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