An Autumn walk in the Royal Botanical Gardens

Leaves that fall from the trees now become food for the earth and so grows the mushroom!

Today I went with Dexter, Anders, Ben, Zack and Eriko for a walk in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, it was beautiful.  It had rained during the night and early morning, so the ground was still shiny and wet, the sky was still and a light shade of grey and the colours of the Botanics popped!

I had just been commenting to Eriko as we walked there that I just loved taking photographs and that doing this somehow made me see the world so differently.  Everyday things that might otherwise pass people by jumped out at me, and Eriko understood exactly what I meant and smiled.  I laughed and said, "you know the way I see things now you would think I had been taking some hallucinogenic substance - the world just popped full of beautiful colours".  I then continued by saying "this photography thing has taken a grip again and has turned back the clock almost as though I was a child seeing things for the first time in all its wonder".

As we strolled through the Botanics (which had a fantastic exhibition on dedicated to mushrooms), I thought of how I used to come here often as a teenager when I was last obsessed with taking photographs.  I used to spend so much time here feeding squirrels and just being in awe at the beauty of the place and as I remembered this I also thought funny how this side of me didn't dominate, it genuinely didn't, it was just something I appreciated and thought everyone did!

Anyway, back to the walk, it was a beautiful Autumn day, the perfect day to go there and experience this time of year at its best.  I also love finding mushrooms, and the adventure and excitement it causes with kids (although of course we only look and find them but don't pick as some are deadly).  

Don't you just love the name Destroying Angel!

The trees had turned all different shades of amber, red, brown, acid yellow and green, jade and yet still there was dark shades of forest green.  In amongst this there were bright coloured purple, white and blue flowers and I just couldn't stop thinking about clothes designing and making up of colour palates.  I really was on a role, as again, when I was a teenager I used to design and make clothes - yep, I did, even sold some!.  Something my sister says I was really good at, but I never so didn't pursue it, like all the creative things in my life.  Here I was again, thinking back to the adolescent me and getting so excited by all the things I was seeing and capturing.

All these images I have seen that are bursting to come out.  So many ways that they can.  I hope that they won't just fall back into my past the way the teenage me did.  Not that I would want to be the teenager again, now I think I have another dimension, possibly more of a depth to take the things further, although I am not sure how - wow trippy!

So the prompt of nostalgia could have been many things, but I have recently done the more obvious ones  on Flashback Friday.  So today given the really lovely day I have experienced it has to be this.  As for all the amazing mushrooms and flowers, I will put them up in another post as they are truly worthy of being shown in their own amazing beauty and I will save myself for another brain trip - but here is one of them:-

What nostalgic trip will you think up?  Actually, I sort of covered this in my topic in my Sunday Scavenger Hunt too!!