Herby walk on the marshes

On Saturday I went on a herb walk on the Walthamstow Marshes. This is a monthly walk through the growing season looking to see what herbs are there and their uses and lore.

Led by Rasheeqa, a Walthamstow-based herbalist. www.hedgeherbs.co.uk.

I meant to go last month, the first walk of the year, but waited to see what the weather was likely to be and the walk was full by the time I emailed to book.

Saturday was sunny, though chilly, so I was glad of my layers.

We walked from the community centre, The Mill, in the old library at one end of Coppermill Lane, down to cattle creep at the other end, stopping to look at herbs on the way. Then under the cattle creep to the marshes, to the Navigation, along a bit over the marshes, back along the path to the car park at the end of Coppermill Lane, and then back to The Mill to finish.

It was a gentle, interesting walk and I learnt a lot. I wrote a lot of notes, but carefully circled anything I was likely to use. I extracted these notes when I got home. I plan to get some vegetable suet to make some balms.

Although we found no lemon balm, the walk did make me go out into the garden and pick some lemon balm leaves to make a (rather boring) tea.

The first plant we saw was herb robert and I have quite a bit of that in my garden. It is astringent, so will wait tummy trouble to give it a go!

Herb walk at Royal College of Physicians

This evening herbalist Paul Grainger led a herb walk of the herb beds outside the Royal College of Physicians (St Andrews Place just north of Great Portland Street).

The beds were at their best, the information given was extremely interesting, and the weather was dry. Would thoroughly recommend walks led by this herbalist.

Paula also does a blog on her website. Not being very technically savvy I haven't seen how to become a follower, but will certainly visit it again.  Today's entry on lemon balm. My neighbour has shingles and it is supposed to be good for that, so I'll ask her to try it.

http://paulagrainger.com/

PS mouse still alive so presenting a problem about what to do about it