Yes ladies and gentlemen mycological history has been made on my windowsill and I have cultivated the world's tiniest mushroom

Awful to hear of the death of Andy Kershaw, who did so much to normalise world music in the media and introduced me to so many great artists via his radio shows. Examples in comments, but not the ones you might expect . . .

Baby gingko still not sure what a gingko leaf looks like

All sorts of craziness here, goodbye to Asha alas

It's Balkan round our house

Baby gingkos!

Good morning Buddha

First of the year brings this poem to mind: Perhaps the tulip knows the fickleness Of Fortune’s smile, for on her stalk’s green shaft She bears a wine cup through the wilderness - Hafiz

Kids come running for the great sound of Chitti Babu! Chitti Babu is on heavy rotation in our house and some believe that should he ever stop playing, the world will go out, bang! like a candle. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycY0...

Sometimes it is Spring Sometimes it is not any thing - Joni Mitchell

Good morning Buddha

Signs of spring on the Capital Ring! (Hendon to Kenton, widdershins)

To the Hockney exhibition: lots of reverse perspective, photocollage and explosive colour just right for a spring day

We live in an old chaos of the Sun Or old dependency of day and night - Wallace Stevens

Three rocks from the Sahara desert, Morocco

Kneeling woman, Aztec, 15th century

Cows of the day:

Good morning Buddha

Typical isn't it, it's not International Potato Day until May, but the shops are already full of potatoes

The splendid website London Pavement Geology (www.londonpavementgeology.co.uk) has been extended across the UK and tells you where to find treasures hidden in plain sight. Here are some London fossils from the LSE and Somerset House.

Today's pots.

Last night's Moon.

Tiled mural depicting the penicillin molecule, under the Westway near St Mary's Hospital where Fleming made his discovery.

Alfred Buckham, Edinburgh 1920

Pots of the day

Happy Solstice everyone

Happy Beethoven's Birthday everyone

This desert is so long, it can take a lifetime to go from one end to the other, and a childhood to cross it at its narrowest point. - Ibn Khaldun

Owl of the day: from Bosch's The Wayfarer

And today, thinking about what my life has been, I feel like some sort of animal that’s being carried in a basket under a curved arm between two suburban train stations . . . these baskets usually have two lids, like half ovals, that lift up at one end or the other should the animal squirm . . .

Sand of the Day: Stovepipe Wells, Death Valley, California. Stovepipe Wells sand is brutal, cyclopean. I can barely fit it into my lens.

We enter it. We come. Our bodies cannot scale heaven except in a fume of burnt petrol. As lords that are expected. Yet there is a silent joy in our arrival. Years and years. Long arpeggios of chafing wires. The concentration of one's body in entering a loop. - T.E. Lawrence

Sand of the Day: Thames foreshore nr. Marigold Alley, London. Lots of lovely quartz with a rich mix of other stones.

Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? - 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 Thomas Browne, 𝘜𝘳𝘯𝘦 𝘉𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭

Epstein's work is no better than pornography. - Walter Sickert

When Babylon has fallen, what then? What shards and fragments shall we rescue from its ruins, and what new temples shall we make from them? When evil has evaporated, what then shall we have to fight against? The world may seem an endless afternoon . . . - Fernando Pessoa

"Old Cader [Idris] is a grand fellow, and shows himself off perfectly with every changing light." - Darwin

Cerrig Arthur, above the Mawddach Valley, Gwynedd. Diffwys in the background.

On the night platform

Good morning, Buddha

The iron gatepost is the last remaining relic of the Pyrgo estate, Havering, Essex, where Princesses Mary and Elizabeth Tudor spent a large part of their childhoods, an easy day's ride from London.

Spending the day defragging my hard drive. Looking forward to those fast fast read speeds tomorrow.

If you didn't fall in love with Diane Keaton the first time you saw the Uncle George story scene, your heart must've been made of stone . . . DK 1946 - 2025

Kashmir, 1980s

Seated goddess with a child, gold, Hittite Empire, Central Anatolia c. 14th–13th century BCE

Three rocks from the Chalbi Desert, Kenya

Lalibela, Ethiopia

Feed your head: listen to Spacemen 3's sensational 44-minute "Dreamweapon" while reading Will Carruthers' hilarious account of the creation of the piece: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_qA... www.theguardian.com/music/2016/s...