Yesterday I went in search of conkers. Am I too old for this activity sans children? Absolutely not. In fact, I was collecting them for the children in my class so we can roll them around in paint and make all kinds of fabulous patterns, so if you think that I am too old, I have a perfectly good reason for it!
I knew exactly where to go for my conkers. Along the edge of the Downs there are many great Horse Chestnut trees. They were responsible for slowing down the walk home from school when I was a childminder. Each year, when Autumn came, it was an opportunity for the children to collect even more conkers than the year before.
I hoped that I had not been beaten by school children & their keen eyes in my quest to find some conkers. For the first few minutes of my searching, I thought I might have missed my moment, as I searched among the fallen leaves and found nothing. I walked a little further, and my eyes adjusted to the array of shades of golds, browns & greens on the ground, and suddenly, that old familiar shape & shine of conkers started to appear before me, here, there and everywhere.
As I picked up all of the conkers I could find, I thought fondly of the days when my siblings & I would collect the biggest & best conkers we could find and wait for our Dad to come home, so he could carefully drill holes through the centre of them, ready to be strung and swung in a game of conkers. I love that the game was called simply, 'conkers.'
If you are feeling in need of something nostalgic to do, I highly recommend going out & collecting conkers - it doesn't matter if you don't have children, or work with them - you could give them to some children you know. Or better still, get some string, drill a hole in your conker, tie the string through the hole & then play conkers with a loved one. Or, just put them in a bowl & have an Autumnal centrepiece on your coffee table!
Comments
Post a Comment