I'm going conkers
Monday, September 20, 2004
A telling indication of the changing interests of children - boys, especially - is the number if conkers that I see lying at the feet of horse-chestnut trees. When I was a boy it was part of the thrill of conker season to manage to find an unopened fruit at the base of the tree. When there were none on the ground, groups of us would gather around the trunk and throw sticks and stones (and prove the playground saying accurate with the occasional misdirected volley) into the branches in the hope of loosening a bully.
On a short walk back from town this evening with Sean we picked up some conkers (we could have picked up many more) and then used a rolled-up brochure from Blockbuster as a bat to play cricket/rounders/baseball in the street. Playing in the street is also a novelty these days. My summers were spent almost completely on the football pitch that was the road in front of our house in Edinburgh. Traffic, a scarcity of children in the vicinity, and the call of the Playstation or IM mean that none of my children experience that freedom.
On a short walk back from town this evening with Sean we picked up some conkers (we could have picked up many more) and then used a rolled-up brochure from Blockbuster as a bat to play cricket/rounders/baseball in the street. Playing in the street is also a novelty these days. My summers were spent almost completely on the football pitch that was the road in front of our house in Edinburgh. Traffic, a scarcity of children in the vicinity, and the call of the Playstation or IM mean that none of my children experience that freedom.
