The first adventure

Today was the first of many trips out and about in the Bristol wilderness, and the lucky recipient of my visit was Blaise Castle Estate. I was actually out on a mistletoe hunt (for work) - and found tons of the stuff. As I've found out, mistletoe is a very cool plant, and is actually really common. At first glance, I thought it was birds' nests in the trees, as it grows quite high up (apparently all the stuff that grows close to the ground gets nicked!) but it's just bushes and bushes of the stuff:


It's a parasitic plant, which means it gets some of its nourishment from its host tree and some from its own photosynthesis. The berries are actually really sticky, and each berry has one seed inside. Birds (like the Mistle thrush) eat the berries, then fly to another tree where they wipe the sticky residue from their beaks onto the branches - along with a few mistletoe seeds. So that's how it spreads - clever stuff!

After my successful mistletoe hunt, I went for a bit of an explore. It turns out that Blaise Castle Estate is brilliant, and has some very pretty walking trails through the woodland. Unfortunately I discovered a bit too late that I was wearing highly impractical footwear:


Hmm, wellies next time, methinks.

But apart from that small glitch, it was a really lovely walk. And the most exciting thing is... I found a CASTLE!!! As in, a real, live castle!! To be fair, I probably shouldn't have been that surprised - after all the name of the estate is a bit of a giveaway. But I literaly clambered up a muddy bank to find this:


Which was very, very cool. Other good stuff I saw included lots of squirrels, one of whom was totally scoping me out from his vantage point in an overhead tree. I thought this was quite funny and started talking to him, then rapidly stopped because I realised I was talking to a squirrel. I also saw some nice trees with little red buds on, but have no idea what they are:


Of all the things I'm rubbish at, trees are definitely my worst area. Oh, and birds. Actually, and other plants... OK so I'm rubbish in quite a few areas. But anyway, trees are one of those areas. And another reason I was at Blaise Estate was to find some oak trees to hunt for galls (knobbly growths that form on trees as a response to a chemical from a female insect, like a gall wasp, when she lays her eggs. The insect actually persuades the tree to build it a little home. Cunning). I embarrassed myself massively by having to ask the lovely estate manager if he could point out an oak tree to me. He gave me a sideways glance of pity before pointing to the enormous, impossible-to-miss tree right in front of us. Look, it didn't have any leaves on, ok? I think even I could recognise an oak tree if it had leaves on. I think.

Finally, here is an awesome cave I came across in the middle of the wood:



Oh, and finally finally, here is me looking very pleased with myself. If I look a bit sleepy, that's because I was a bit hungover. Actually, it turns out that bracing walks are quite good for hangovers. Maybe I should do it more often. Or maybe I should just stop getting hangovers. Or maybe both...