As I write this, in December 1994, southern England has only just experienced its first hard frosts of the winter, which have ended one of the longest seasons for autumn fungi in recent memory – well over two months of mild, muggy weather producing just the right conditions of warmth and moisture. On my annual foray with the Kintbury Wildlife Group to Savernake Forest in late September, we had no difficulty in finding more than 50 species of agaric fungi along less than a kilometre of woodland rides.