Due to an inconvenient frost at blossom time, or something like that, it's generally not been a good year for plums here - or so everybody tells me. However, there's always an exception - and I found it - a few wild plum trees in a sheltered hedgerow near my house, groaning under the weight of their own fruit.

A trip out to Crab Wood, near Winchester to enjoy a walk in the woods, and to pick wild strawberries.

I took the family to Keyhaven with the intention of fishing for spider crabs off the rocks of Hurst Spit, but this plan was foiled by high winds - whipping up the solent into big swells and breakers - crabbing was definitely not on the cards.

Determined not to return home empty-handed, we went for a walk around Keyhaven harbour and out beside the salt marsh toward Lymington. There, we found Marsh Samphire in great abundance.

We were out of a walk at manor Farm Country Park and not 100 yards away from where we caught the shore crabs last Sunday, I spotted a flash of bright yellow amid the leaf litter off to one side of the path.

On further investigation, my hopes were confirmed - it was a little patch of Chanterelles.