Chanterelle in the City

On Baldwin Street in Bristol there is a building that looks like it was first built as a cinema in the glory days before TV. When I moved here in the late 1990's it was a nightclub, I have happily hazy memories of being quite ecstatic there, listening to Paul Oakenfold and Sister Bliss playing DJ sets when at their zenith. As the dance-music scene declined, the nightclub closed and the building became a sports bar. Even that didn't make enough money, and now it's been shuttered for years, falling into decay.

Today, even the shutters are decaying. This is a bit of plywood over the little alcove/window in the wall, where originally adverts for the films would have been displayed. Someone has ripped the painted layer off half the plywood, and the bare wood underneath exposed to the elements has formed the damp base for a colony of fungi. They look like evil russet-brown relatives of chanterelles; rooted in plywood glue and breathing finest Baldwin Street bus fumes most of the day, I reckon they are probably not worth harvesting. Not unless you want to kill someone with a plate of mushrooms on toast.

I suppose the thing that caught me about this is it must have taken a while for this colony to grow. They're there on a busy street, most no higher than my shoulder, and they don't seem to have been disturbed by anyone at all.

I guess that, in this bit of Baldwin Street at least, possibly no-one notices, and probably no-one cares.