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A foraging foray

Poplar mushrooms

This past Saturday, I went on a guided foraging walk with Daisy in east London. Got way too much sun!

It was so helpful to have a guide. I’ve considered just trying it with a book, but it’s hard to beat being able to ask questions and watch the way someone else watches. It reminds me of learning how to draw or paint, part of learning how it works is learning how to change your perspective. So it’s useful to observe the way someone else sees things. I’d still like to get a good book about it, but now I feel like I have a better idea of what I’d like to get out of that book.

The walk was from 10:30am to 2:30pm with one bathroom break but pretty much no other stops. Didn’t really need to stop for lunch since we were grazing anyway, but we did pause at the floating bakery. I had one of the best muffins I’ve ever had, felt like I needed to lie down afterward. He’s open Friday to Sunday, worth checking where he’s at online since he moves around a little.

Read list of what we saw and collected

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Cobbler’s work on Loake chelsea boots

Work slip from Daniel, the cobbler on Francis Road

The cobbler on Francis Road did great work fixing up a second-hand pair of Loake chelsea boots recently. The uppers were in pretty good condition except for some salt damage. The elastic was perfect, surprisingly. The leather soles on the other hand were nearly shot, the right one in particular. The stitches were worn through.

Daniel pinned the leather sole to the welt, slightly built up the nose, built up the super-thin area under the ball of the foot, and then he glued and pinned a thin, black rubber sole to the leather outsole. The rubber sole says “Longlife Indiana”. He write “High-life sole” in thin silver pen on the left shoe near the heel, and “Francis Cobb” on the right. Though the heel didn’t need replacing, he did pin it down to make sure there’s no way it’ll peel away. Really, really pleased with the results.