Signs of the season

There’s an enormous Horse Chestnut tree outside our local supermarket and at this time of the year it’s not only the small boys and girls who are keeping their eyes open for jewels.  Who can resist a shiny brown conker, freshly fallen from the tree, to put in a pocket and treasure?  I’ve heard that placing them in the corner of a room will keep the spiders away and keeping a couple in a pocket might help with rheumatism.  Who knows?  Maybe that’s why a deep brown glossy conker doesn’t lay on the ground for long before being picked up?

I couldn’t walk past this one which fell right in front of me yesterday morning and placed it carefully by my side on the car seat. I forgot about it until I spotted it this morning and remembered Autumn term at school when we couldn’t wait to play conkers!  Sadly it was no longer the beauty it was yesterday, because a real conker soon dries out and loses its beautifully deep and glossy surface, unlike the Penkridge Ceramics one in the first photograph, which is a shiny and bright as the day we bought it, some dozen or so years ago.

Although the children are all back at school and the cooler mornings and darker evenings tell us it’s September, the sun is still shining and we seem to be in a settled weather pattern right now.

Let’s hope it carries on for a little bit longer!