h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After a period of heavy rain it was a bright sunny, mild morning so we decided on an amble on the Quantocks which are gorgeous this time of year with all the Autumn colours.

It is always particulary heart warming that it something that the teens still really enjoy doing this with us, occasionally their enthusiasm have dipped but it has only ever been a phase.

Often when we chuck out the what do you want to do question we get 'bbq for breakfast on the Quantocks or the beach, watch the sun come up somewhere (or more likely just watch it get lighter) stomp up a hill for the view'. Warms the cockles it does

On our last stroll we managed with difficulty to find sloes, they are begining to go over and it took a while to find somewhere where their was plenty for us to take a few so we now have some sloe gin 'ginning' and this time we have gathered sweet chestnuts also . There is always a sense of satisfaction about gathering.

Not because this is free food because I really hate it that that has become so 'trendy', only because I find that some people are really quite greedy, stripping things bare, stagggering away with bags and bags of stuff, gloating over their free haul and leaving in their massive cars and it just makes me

The satisfaction is partly the fact that we are going to make something yummy with whatever we have gathered, the quality time we have spent together and the continuity of it all. The passing on of knowledge from one generation to the next, whether that knowledge be of the identification kind or the respect and appreciation of what nature has to offer and how to treat it kindly