A walk to clear the head

Last night I had a bit of an argument with this new telephone company we've joined earlier in the year over a phone bill. This morning, to my great annoyance, it stopped working all together, i.e. no internet no phone connection. We weren't overdue or anything. Phoning their service line is free from a land line, but not from a mobile, apart from the fact, that we have bad reception in our house anyway and they put you through the usual routine for 10 minutes: "if you are an existing cutomer press one, if your granny wants a new phone line press twentytwoandahalf," etc, etc. So I just went off in a big huff this morning.

We had some business at the local commune in the valley, so we left home on foot to sort that out. Then I said to Susan, I could do with a beer for lunch now, fancy wondering over to our cheap shop on the other side of the river in Albiano. Arriving there I still felt I needed to let off steam, so I said let's explore the hills above Albiano and see what's up there.

Well I can tell you now, we've had a fantastic day! Climbing up the hill opposite our village we came across a signpost towards Stadano Bonaparte. I don't like walks where I return the same way we went, and I knew there's a bridge at Stadano back across the river. Incidentally, you may have guessed, the small village of Stadano Bonaparte is the ancestral home of Napoleon, however, you wouldn't know about it, it's all modern buildings now.

Here's a view towards it:

The best thing was though that the path was not well trodden and absolutely teeming with beautiful mushrooms. To my regret I can not identify many for definite, but one of the most impressive looking and most easily identifiable is the parasol. I put my phone next to this specimen to give you an idea of the size of the bugger!

By the time I had the camera ready the small family of fairies sheltering under it had already disappeared, they don't like having their picture taken. You just have to take my word for it. Oh hang on there was a big fairy peeping out from one...

This is one from above:

and another which hasn't opened yet:

They are great fried with a bit of bacon. The closed ones make good stuffed mushrooms with a sage and onion stuffing. We only picked 2 as we couldn't possibly eat more than that, but I've read in the meantime that they dry well, so we shall return to pick some more.

Soon we found out, why the path wasn't so well trodden, it had eroded away shortly before Stadano and ended in a sheer cliff above the river. So we did have to return the same way we went. Here are some more impressions from our walk:

holly oak

fern on a stone wall

an autumn view of the village of Caprigliola.

And when we returned home, the phone line was ok again, thank god.