Going bonkers for conkers
This month's random thing
I love Autumn, it’s probably my favourite season, though Spring is a close second. Autumn is a season of transformation and promise, and conkers.
I flippin love conkers (horse chestnut to any readers who don’t know what a conker is, but I encourage you to add the word to your vocabulary0
Anyway, conkers. Small, hard, glossy brown nuggets of autumn that fit perfectly into your palm. They fall in their prickly hard shell and scatter across the pavements waiting to be collected.
In October my daughter and I collected conkers, mostly from next doors tree, and stored them in a glass jar. Easy peasy autumn breezy. Even if you’ve only ever had Pinterest Fails, this is the type of decoration project in that the most DIY-decor-dyslexic can achieve.
The jar filled up over the month and mum would ask;
“What are you going to do with them?”
to which I replied;
“Nothing. They’re just for fun, and I’m going to throw them away at the end of the month.”
Come November my glorious conker collection was tired, shriveled and in some places a bit moldy so out on the leaf pile they went.
Unfortunately, during October, thoughts had been percolating in mother’s mind and she was very upset to not be able to find the conkers. Mother had a plan!
Uh-oh!
After some frustrations and tears we found the discarded conkers and she collected them up (there were 58), brought them indoors and washed them off.
We now have a tote bag full of conkers that migrates around the house until such time mum forgets about them completely and I can throw them away, again.
In the meantime I will help mum plant a couple in pots so she can see if they’ll germinate.
Do you Tiktok?
I’ve started spending more time on TikTok. Yes it’s weirdly addictive and far too easy to lose an hour to the scrolling.
I’ve saved lots of recipe videos to try, shared cat videos with my daughter and discovered all kinds of curious and interesting things. I’m finding it more freeing to use than other social media platforms at the moment as I’m not expecting anything from it other than entertainment.
I’m also sharing about my life with mum, and it would be lovely to see you there too. There are also my own cat videos if that’s more suited to your viewing pleasure.
Anyoldway, if you’re on TikTok do say hello I’m over at theruthdouglas
Tiktok also taught me what I can do with my 58 conkers, I can make shampoo out of them. Conkers contain saponin which is a natural soapyness chemical, and having made soap before I am curious to see how it works, but I think that might be a project for next autumn.
Till next time x