So I'm out in the forest looking for mushrooms, again, when I think I'm going to die. Is the death themed mushroom poem I wrote last week a self fulfilling prophecy?

I mean, going down a no-through road can start well. Middle of nowhere, check. No people around, check. Beautiful Autumn day, check. Pine forest, check. Signs of mushrooms, check. Peace and quiet, check.

And it really is lovely - a light drizzle of rain, and there's saffron milk caps everywhere (I'm getting sick of eating them) and I'm stoked I found this place. I'd spend an hour on google earth looking to where I suspected might be a pine plantation, but wasn't sure. Using street view and some nouse, I spied some pine trees pixellating into focus, and that was good enough for me. This forest is about an hour away, and where not many people would be foraging as it's too far out.

I enjoy tripping around the forest - not literally, but you know, taking strange routes cross ways and side ways, following trails of mushrooms and kinda getting lost. I have a fairly good sense of direction, I'd like to think, and these forests aren't massive - big enough to get tired walking in, but not big enough to get lost in Siberia in.

The names of mushrooms rattle around in my brain - suillus, agaricus, trametes, blah blah. I've been learning the botanical names so my head is doing funny things.

There's more amanita muscaria here than I've seen anywhere else - the distance from towns is enough to keep amanita hunters at bay. People like to get them for their intoxicant value, but you can actually eat them -fact. It's a wierd thing that guidebooks started saying they were toxic and completely ignored the fact Russia, Eastern Europe and even France were eating these by boiling them in water for fifteen minutes and discarding thee liquid first. I mean, even a morel's going to be toxic if you eat it raw, but we all love morels. Still, I"m too chickenshit to try them.

Anyway, back to dying. I skirt right round the bottom of the forest, and it's very squidgy and wet down there, and there's thousands of amanitas and all kinds of other groovy things, some of which I THINK are grey knights, which can be toxic I'm told too, but I'm not sure, and if I'm not sure I am not game enough to try them. I take an uphill track up right through the middle, thinking it'll loop me back up to the main track plus give me a chance of finding other mushrooms.

But it's super steep, like slippery steep. It's a really struggle for me to climb, but I don't want to backtrack as I've reached the half way point already. My heart is thumping in my chest and I start getting really hot. Like sweaty hot. Like, this isn't fun anymore kinda hot. Like, what the fuck am I doing in the forest all alone with no reception kinda hot. Like, was it the flu jab I had yesterday? Did I touch something I shouldn't have? My heart is really fluttering - it's not a standard da-dum but more like a da da da da da. I start feeling a tad ill.

Then I start thinking, aren't I the idiot for not telling anyone where I was going today? I could of sent my location to the hubs before embarking on this adventure. Even said 'if I'm not back in a couple of hours, send help'. But I like my independence and adventures always have SOME sense of risk, right?

And seriously, no shit, I think I'm going to die. I'm strangely calm. I know no one will find me for a while, but that's okay, I'll be dead. No business of mine. And there's worse ways, and worse places, to die. The pine needles are soft and the forest is quiet, and I imagine lying down and dying quietly and calmly. It really isn't that bad.

I do laugh though - the poem I wrote last week seems a bit of a prophecy. I posted it in a FAcebook group and some mycophiles got a bit pedantic on it and said it didn't make sense she died from a death cap poisoning immediately, let alone eat it raw in the middle of the forest - fair point. So I changed it - so she has a heart attack. As per below. I shit you not. Here's me, in the forest, thinking I'm dying of a heart attack, and wierding out as everyone would be thinking: how funny, she wrote that poem last week where that exact thing happened. Except without morels. Bummer. Also, PS - I like the poem better without the haiku.

In the dark, yawning forest
Fungal hyphae nudge the soil
Rain rises rings of rounded fruit
She knives plump porcini at their fat base
Wood blewitts and saffron milk caps
Spores drift like bridal veils
The basket fills, the forest breaths
She finds slimy suillus
Slippery little buggers
Then at last, she spies morels
Her heart skips and thumps
What a find! - & she gasps her last
Falling, she is wedded to pine needles
Blood and bone nourishes mycellium
Weaving through dissolving flesh
The following Autumn, searching
They find her beside the amanitas
Or what is left, we all supposed.

So what does one do, when one is having a heart attack on the dark side of a hill in a pine forest? I sat for a bit, then walked as fast as I could back to the car, coz at least then I could drive to hospital. I was a tad freaked out by then. I mean, really? What was I thinking? And should I get my heart checked at last, or what?

By the time I got back to the van, I was fine, and had a basket full of slippery jacks and saffron milk caps. All good. I live to pick more mushrooms.

No lessons learnt.

This particular pine forest was near Carlisle River on the other side of Colac, Victoria.