The Observant Walker

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 The Observant Walker: Wild Food, Nature and Hidden Treasures on the Pathways of Britain, by John
Wright

Oh, this book was a delight.  As we know, I'm now a devotee of the Ridgeway, and so I've been collecting books about walking in Britain (and other places) for a while.  There are a lot of them, so I'm not planning to be exhaustive!  I actually got this book on the Ridgeway hike, when we were staying in Wallingford.  There was a bookshop, and I asked what she would recommend if I liked books about walking in nature, but I don't like Robert MacFarlane. That stumped her a little bit but she recommended John Wright, and him I like!

Wright is all about the plants.  He likes to walk around and drive everyone else crazy by spending all his time carefully studying the plants and fungi and lichens he sees.  (And if the lichen is in London, he'll lie in the gutter to get a good photo.)   He and Tolkien would have a grand time standing in one place and staring at one tree for half an hour while everyone else kept going.  This book contains accounts of seven walks in various spots all over Britain, from Dorset to Wales to Scotland, and he describes the geology, the ecosystem, and most especially the plants, identifying them by name and habit, and often waxing poetic about some particular detail.

The last couple of chapters are especially about the joys of mushrooms, and he really loves those best.  Those chapters are just a lot of fun to read simply because he thinks fungi are so great.  

It isn't a fast read, because it's easy to get caught up in all the names and details.  I read this one slowly and savored the experience!  If you're interested in such things, you'd enjoy it too -- and he's much more straightforward and less pretentious than that other guy. 

I can take botanical photos in Britain too!  But identifying them is a different question. 
 I think this is a dog rose?  


 

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