Are you ready to meditate with Cori?
Get all snuggly and comfortable in your bed.
It's time to let go of your day and relax your body.
Make sure that everything is just right.
Close your eyes if you want to.
You can take a nice,
Big,
Deep breath and blow out with a sigh.
There we go.
Idy,
Cherry and Veyr were on a very special expedition of sorts.
They were in Cumberland Forest and they'd gone mushroom foraging with some of their very good friends,
Gwennifer,
Meredith and Riordan.
Their friends were brothers and sisters and they loved this forest.
Not only did it have some amazing mushrooms for mushroom foraging,
Which the cats had never done,
But it had lots of magical energy about it.
Like the trees were special.
It was just a very enchanted forest.
And the kids loved to go there.
And that's why they'd invited Idy,
Cherry and Veyr to go with them.
Idy had been studying the art of mushroom foraging.
Apparently it's very complex,
Said Idy.
You have to be very careful with the kind of mushrooms that you find and pick and make sure that you know exactly what you're picking and always check with someone else before you eat them.
There were lots of rules to stay safe when it comes to mushroom foraging.
You don't just go in the forest and see a mushroom of some kind of fungi and pick it and eat it,
Because some of them can be very,
Very poisonous.
Idy said,
I know that the ones with red on them,
Any part on the top or on the stalk,
You have to stay away from.
Red is like the color of danger.
The kids said,
That's right.
Very good,
Idy.
Cherry said,
I have absolutely no clue.
I have no clue at all what I'm doing.
I am going to be totally honest.
I'm really not into the idea of foraging through a forest looking for mushrooms.
I don't see the point.
Guinevere said that they were going to make a yummy,
Delicious,
Creamy mushroom soup later when they got back to the house with all the mushrooms that they find,
If they find any.
Cherry said,
Why don't we just get,
Oh,
I do know this.
I do know this.
Why don't we just see if we can find some creaminess?
Idy said,
I'm impressed,
Cherry.
Yes,
Creaminess,
Creaminess,
Creamy,
Creamy,
Creamy.
They said,
What's,
What,
What,
What's that?
Cherry said,
It's a white button mushroom and we could just get it from the supermarket.
Why don't we just go to the supermarket and buy some mushrooms?
It would save us all this,
All this foraging around.
Is it foraging or fudging?
Fudging around.
It would save us all this fudging around in the forest,
Getting us past it.
Mind you,
I do like being in nature.
All right,
Then.
All right,
Then.
All right,
Then.
I'll stop moaning.
Let's do it.
What we're looking for,
Kids.
What we're looking for.
Riordan had a mushroom book and he showed them a couple of pictures of mushrooms that were quite common in this forest.
This is what we're looking for,
He said.
Cherry said,
Right,
OK,
I'm on it.
I'm on it.
I'm on it like.
I'm on it.
I'm on it like.
A hat on a scarecrow.
I'm on it.
I'm on it like.
Windscreen wipers on a car.
I'm on it.
Are we on it,
Veya?
Veya said,
Yes,
Me's on it.
See,
We're on it.
We're ready.
Go ahead.
We'll follow you.
They all stayed quite close by because they didn't want to get lost in the forest.
They could easily see each other at all times,
Which was very good and very smart and very safe.
And actually,
Mushroom foraging turned out to be really,
Really fun.
The cats had a wonderful time.
Heidi found three mushrooms.
Cherry found two mushrooms.
And Veya found six.
She happened to be just a natural at mushroom foraging.
The kids also found lots of mushrooms.
And it looked like they had plenty of mushrooms to go home and make a creamy,
Yummy,
Delicious mushroom soup.
Which is what Cherry was really excited about.
I'm so excited.
You know,
I understand what this mushroom foraging means.
Foraging for your own food is so rewarding.
It's like going in your garden and just picking your own vegetables.
It feels like that,
But even better.
It feels like you're going into the forest and you're just picking food that everybody doesn't see or they just ignore.
Or like Mother Nature's just given us this food and no one had to water it,
No one had to plant it,
No one had to grow it like you do when you grow your own food in your garden.
You know,
It takes some work,
Doesn't it?
You have to buy the seeds,
You have to plant the seeds,
You have to water the seeds.
Then you have to look after the little plants.
And then it takes some time before you get fruit or you get vegetables.
It's like an ordeal.
It's a lot of work.
That's why when people grow their own vegetables and then they eat them in the dinner,
They're like,
Oh,
This is the best.
I'm not surprised it's the best.
It took so much work to get it.
Wouldn't you think it were the best?
Even if it tasted horrible,
I'd be like,
Oh,
These are the bestest grapes.
Or,
Oh,
This is the bestest tomato I've ever tasted.
I'd lie.
No,
I wouldn't.
Don't do that.
Nobody.
I ignore that.
Nobody lies.
It's really bad.
But,
You know,
I would exaggerate.
Sometimes that's OK.
I'd exaggerate and I'd say,
Wow,
This is the bestest vegetables.
Everybody should taste my vegetables.
Everybody should know how good I grow vegetables.
That's what I'd be like.
Because it took me six months to get the tomato.
Anyway,
What I'm saying is,
I now see what you were saying,
Kids.
This is so much more rewarding than just popping down to Sainsbury's or going down to Vons or wherever you're going to go shopping and get your button mushrooms,
Right?
Because even though those button mushrooms,
You know,
Those really cute white ones that you get in the supermarket,
They are very nice.
I bet our soup is going to taste 10 million billion trillion hundred billion gillion times better.
Don't you think?
She just talked and talked and talked as they walked together through the forest.
At one point,
Veya said that she saw a tree that had twinkly lights in it.
She pointed to the tree.
It was a big,
Very,
Very tall oak tree with the biggest branches and hundreds of thousands of leaves on it.
Meredith said,
We think that's a magic tree.
It's funny that you should see the lights too.
Cherry said,
Which tree?
Veya said,
That one right there.
She pointed to really the biggest tree around.
Cherry said,
I don't see any lights.
Heidi said,
I don't see any lights in the tree.
Are you sure,
Veya?
Veya said,
It's full.
It's full of twinkling lights.
Can't you see them?
Meredith looked at Gwyneth and looked at Riordan and they all smiled at each other.
Like they were in some inner communication,
Some inner joke or inner knowledge that no one else knew about.
But now Veya knew.
Gwyneth said to Veya,
You must be a very special cat to see the lights.
Cherry wasn't sure whether she liked that.
I can see them.
I can,
I can see them.
The purple and green and the pink.
Yeah,
I can see them.
I don't know what I was thinking before that.
I just don't know what I was thinking.
Now I know,
Now I know.
Yeah,
That tree right there.
She was pointing to the wrong tree.
That tree right there is full of all multicolored lights.
The tree that Veya was talking about was a different tree and it was full of golden lights.
Not colored lights,
Just golden lights.
So the kids and Veya kind of assumed and knew that Cherry just wanted to be a part of it.
So they just let her go along with what she was saying.
Veya walked closer to the big giant oak tree with the golden lights.
Hundreds of them twinkling in the leaves and through the branches.
They stood under the tree.
Veya said,
What is it?
What's doing all those lights?
What's making the lights?
Meredith said,
Look closer,
Veya.
Really close.
She did a squint with her eyes so that she could see further away and clearer.
And what she saw was the tiniest,
Tiniest little fairy.
She said,
Meredith said,
They're tree fairies.
They live on this special oak tree that's hundreds of years old.
And you can only find them here in Cumberland Forest on this tree.
Wow,
Said Veya.
They're so small and pretty.
I want to be a tree fairy.
Cherry said,
Oh,
I can see it.
I can see it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why is it wearing check pajamas?
Cherry couldn't see the fairy,
But she thought she could.
Silly fairy,
Fancy wearing check pajamas.
Can you see it's check pajamas?
Veya said,
Maybe.
She kept looking at the actual fairy that she was looking at.
It was so tiny.
It looked like a tiny little crystal reflecting the sunlight from the sun shining down on the tree through the forest.
There were so many of them.
And it looked like all they were doing was just bobbing around from leaf to leaf.
Veya said,
What are they doing?
Grineva said,
They're collecting the dew off the leaves and drinking it.
It's like a magical potion that helps them to shine really bright all the time.
It always helps us find our way home,
This tree,
Because we can see the lights from far away.
So we know we'll never get lost in the forest.
Oh,
This is so nice.
Heidi said,
This is a very special tree.
Even though Veya knew she couldn't see the lights,
She didn't mind.
She just liked being part of this magical story.
Everyone stared at the tree for quite some time.
And then they went back to the house.
They made the mushroom soup.
It was absolutely delicious.
Cherry ate two bowls.
This,
She said,
Is the bestest mushroom soup.
It is the bestest mushroom,
Creamy mushroom,
Mushroom,
Mushroom soup I have ever,
Ever tasted.
What are these mushrooms that's in it?
Riordan said,
There are morales and there are also chanterelles.
Oh,
Said Cherry,
Very fancy.
This morale-less mushroom soup and this chanterelle mushroom soup is delicious.
It's so good.
It's so good.
And I'm so full and I really could do with a nap.
Is anybody else tired?
Everyone was tired because they'd been walking around the forest for quite a few hours to find those mushrooms.
They were all pooped tired,
Definitely.
They all laid down on one of the kids' beds,
Snuggled in together,
And started talking about fairies and the magical tree in the forest.
Everyone closed their eyes and Guinevere told them a story,
A tale about the magical tree that's hundreds of years old.
The tree fairies that come from far and wide to drink the dew and shine bright to help whoever is in the forest to find their way in the day or at night.
It didn't matter if Cherry and Heidi didn't see the fairies.
As they closed their eyes and listened to Guinevere,
It was like they could see them.
She made them sound so real,
They could picture everything about them.
The size,
The color,
What the little faces looked like.
Eventually,
Everyone drifted off into the sweetest fairy dreams.
With full tummies from the mushroom soup,
They slept soundly all night long.
The End
