I stand corrected

I'm no expert in mycology, until recently I had known only around 8 species by name. Those nicely coloured boletes were not two specimens of Boletus satanas but one Boletus calopus, inedible because awfully bitter (but oh so pretty. I know where they grow, I'll get a picture when the rains stop) a well slug-gnawed Boletus erythropus.
Which I found out by showing them to a botanist friend. I was also told that B. erythropus is hardly ever infected with insect larvae but that it's popular among slugs and forest mice. Also, it turns nicely blue when bruised or cut. Mental note: I should read something about the chemistry in mushrooms. I wonder whether the blue colour could be fixed somehow.

It's raining and I'm not going anywhere out until it's sunny. No more mushrooms for a few days, promise.

Too much time on my hands

That's yesterday's batch. Without the non-edible ones I plan to use for dyeing. I'm going to get some more now.

Hunter and gatherer. More of a gatherer

In the 1850's, Austrian parliament passed a law granting the right of passage, so what's not fenced is accessible. And it's also permitted to pick mushrooms, berries, herbs and other stuff, and dry sticks.
Not that gathering dry sticks would be a prevailing industry but mushrooming is a national sport and at around this time, various yummy things are rather easy to find.
To start with, I'm regularly going to the meadow behind the hotel to pick St. John's wort and tansy for dyeing, I've brought a bagful of lichens, for dyeing too, and some Matricaria... and well, mushrooms. It's warm and humid and they grow like mad.
L. had told me some time ago that she'd love to try this national sport so I invited her over. I know six edible species, umpteen poisonous ones and since it's a national sport, first graders are taught the most important thing: pick only what you know for sure. (1) L. has very overblown ideas about my knowledge, I'm able to name half of the plants in the curb but that's all. And, there're thousands of species of mushrooms growing in this general area (some are in the form of goo under rotting wood, admittedly) so if I know 20 at most... well. L. had a happy.
Mushrooms shouldn't be carried in plastic bags, they might start metabolizing themselves into something not-really-healthy (2); normal people use baskets. Since I'm not a regular mushroomer, I use a paper bag from Bravissimo lined with newspapers. Style, I don't have any.



(1) and also that although paris (Paris quadrifolia) berries look like blueberries, the whole plant is totally different and the berries are poisonous. There's lots of them growing in the nearby forest, gotta pick one for my herbary. Also, paris and blueberries are totally not similar; I wonder how many people would really think they're picking a blueberry... and whether it's not criminal stupidity.
(2) at which point I always wish I knew more chemistry
(3) old newspapers are one of the most important materials for an aspiring nature lover and gatherer of stuff. Used to press flowers, to dry stuff on... at the worst, you can even read them.

Scents of the Mediterranean

I was invited to another joint blog project. Oddly enough, just now, I'm pretty far from the Mediterranean and it even smells different here so it might get a bit fuzzy.

When Ines reached me via Helg, the first thought was Eh, I wanted to make a perfume reflecting the stuff I smelled on my way to the library. Starting with two sorts of jasmine that grew in my street, and wisteria, cypresses, elder (might be the only elder shrub in Tuscany, though, growing in the curb there), cedars and dry grass.


I'm not absolutely positive that this is Jasminum sambac but this grows two blocks to the south from my Florentine abode. I'd often pluck a branch and wear it in my hair. It greatly complemented Une Fleur de Chanel and Shiseido's Vocalise.

Apart from my love for jasmine, growing on every other fence, there were magnolias, one under my windows (like, deep under, I lived on the fifth floor) and they mixed in an odd yet pleasing way with the smell of ozone and machine or whatever the railway smells of. Which brings me to the thought that I have yet to discover what are these 'technical' smells made off. I'm a sucker for gasoline, asphalt, wood paint and this sort of stuff and apparently, blending them with flowers might yield most interesting results.

At first, I thought that I could mention two myrrh fragrances I have, both of which happen to be Italian; to me, myrrh has an aspect of sea breeze. But I lived in Florence and, more importantly, I don't like sea. It's big and fish pee in it, I like to say, which sounds like a stupid joke but it points out the two things that put me off: it's too big to see what's in there and it may be pretty messy.
Nor are there orange blossoms, roses or what else. I have an orange tree in my office back north and where I was, oranges were a thing brought from Sicily. Roses... well, as far as I noticed, the local gardens and yards featured wisterias, jasmine, magnolias, mimosas, cammelias... roses not so much. After all, I lived in a city, not in some picturesque country villa. And outside the city, it was something for which I have an exact botanic term: ugly uninteresting undergrowth. Speaking of ugly uninteresting undergrowth, it's not that ugly nor uninteresting in the light of my latest studies

Whatever point of view I take, my Florence, and thus my Italy is mostly the strange green smell of hot asphalt and jasmine. And the famous Florentine iris? Must've skipped me. I think Santa Maria Novella and I Profumi di Firenze both have an iris fragrance but I'm not that mad after iris, I got Cuoio di Spagna from the former and Cuoio di Russia from the latter. Not to remind me of the famous and Florentine leather manufacture, I just like leather fragrances, the harsher, the better. Oddly enough, real leather smells somewhat different anyway.

Aaaaand, wherever I go, it's very likely that I'll be accompanied by some hand-dyed yarn, which obviously smells of sheep and vinegar. A bit of my private universe, I guess...


This joint blog project was organized by Ines of All I am, a redhead. Check out the other participating blogs:
Scent Hive, A rose beyond the Thames, Illuminated Perfume Journal, Perfume in Progress, Katie Puckrik Smells, Ayala Smelly Blog, Notes from the Ledge, Olfactarama, Suzanne's Perfume Journal, The Non Blonde, Waft by Carol, Hortus Conclusus, Bonkers about perfume and
I Smell Therefore I am.

Lazy

Apparently, I got used to not blogging.

Lo, behold and beware, then. I'm not-exactly-holidaying in the mountains. It's a combo of hiding from people in order to write my thesis and asthma treatment. I've settled in my hotel suite in this Podunk (tomorrow's quest is to go to the nearest ATM. 3km through the woods or 8 km on the road) and so far, I've procured a decent writing table and gathered an armful of St. John's wort for dyeing wool which is not exactly the sort of productivity I expected. Well, yeah, I've made around a bajillion of decants I've sent from the local post office (and ran out of cash to mail the rest, thus the trip tomorrow) but no really serious work was done.

Also, my usb ports ignore data storage media so there will be no pictures until sometime later. Only words.

To start with, we're buying the next door house. I prefer to call it chalet, it's one, after all. We being me and my father, whom the hotel belongs (1). Because, for some reason, the ski lift belongs to the hotel. The ski slope, on which it stands, belongs to the chalet and its five or six hectares of land. Apart from the actual slope, there are some woods and meadows uphill.
.
.
.
Have you noticed that I'm not overly enthused about academic career?
Have you noticed that I've got some inexplicable affinity to sheep? Well, not yet, I still need to write about my trip to England but say Yes to yourself and ignore the doubts.

So, obviously, I've been wandering around, planning the landscaping (my own garden, yay, and there's a spring and a swamp for swamp irises!) and the general style (village chic or some such. No 'folk' crap bought wholesale, homegrown mint for mojitos and teas and such), the bar (homemade crisps? not sure whether it's doable but certainly homemade cakes from whatever the garden yields) and... sheepies.

You're officially permitted to call me silly. Or even worse. No, I know nothing about sheep but that they are stupid and produce fibre. Recently, I've learned that they are loud and that they can run really fast. Yes, sheep in full gallop are something memorable. Meantime, I've found out that they are even stupider but docile (thus manageable, one hopes) and that they tend to get all parasites imaginable. But, squeeeee, my own fibre (2). And if it fails, the sheep can be made into kebabs and served to the hotel guests as a special attraction for the New Year's party or something. (3)

Now I need to cool down and wait until my enthusiasm is gone. But, hey, I could grow my own garden without my mother and her Prussian gardening style! Damn.

-----------------------------------------------------
(1) My family is not filthy rich, just mildly stainedly rich, that's it.
(2) I produced two hanks of handspun. Bulky and underspun, to be exact. One was in ghastly colours and I traded it for something I found more reasonable but the recipient glowed with glee, the other I still have. And, well, metre and half of superwash merino and Meezer blend. Still a way to go.
(3) Mental note: try on something less expensive than, say, California Variegated Mutant.

Ashmolean

Yesterday we made a day trip to Oxford. Which was full of the !@#$% tourists and larger than tolerable amounts of Italian brats. After fighting the crowds for a while, we decided to seek refuge in the Ashmolean museum for a while.
Some five hours later, the custodians chased us out because they were closing. Then we sat in front of the museum building, mom was having her nicotine fix, and we decided that we need to go back because we hadn't seen the reliquary of Thomas Beckett, we never found that room with textiles again and the majolica collection would deserve a closer inspection.
I don't totally mind spending a day, two or ten in a museum, it seems to me that the average specimen of fellow citizen is usually much less enthused by endless cases of things of rather obscure nature while I'm running around and shouting See! Deruta! (that comes with lustre glazes) or That's Urbino there! (1) while that fellow citizen who accompanies me thinks something about maybe not actually benign fools. Ashmolean is an archeological museum plus somewhat eclectic collection so apparently, it entertained even my mother (albeit sometimes on the Oh, shiny level).

The detailed account of the journey including various interesting accidents, of my cold, of the conference and such will be given later. No worries, I can't deprive the world of the story how we... Just you wait.

-----------------------
(1) I'm no expert on majolica, I've only spent a few uneventful afternoons, two, to be exact, in the municipal museum in Arezzo where they have humongous collection of them and I sometimes get it right.

In other news

It appears that I have a slightly significantly disgusting microbial garden in my throat, Eustachian tubes and surrounding spaces.
It's my day 2 on antibiotics and they work, or at least the infected bits now don't hurt like hell, just in sort of discreet and tolerable way. No allergic reaction either.
I have no appetite and even if I had, I can swallow only liquids.
I'm exhausted so don't expect any cool blogging in the next few days.