The Tuesday tree: unexpected treasure

Do you recall that horse chestnut of ours that always seems to start on autumn before any of the other trees? At the weekend, we went to visit it again with Granny.

We were looking for conkers, of course.

‘Darling, you do know that the conkers won’t be ripe yet,’ I reminded my son. Undaunted, he put Granny to work to help him find some.

There were indeed plenty fallen on the grass. He stamped on a few to break them open.

And lo, when they were broken open…

…every case had a ripe little conker inside! Faith rewarded. We have never known conkers ripe on Granny’s birthday before. To give you an idea of how early they are, here is a picture I took on October 17th, 2009:

And here is a picture I took at the end of our foraging trip last Sunday:

A handful of little ripe conkers and a beech nut. Inedible, but shiny and satisfying. For a small boy, this is a handful of happiness.