Conkers

During my inner-city childhood there were few 'conker trees' and far too many schoolboys with sticks.

Although now living in a more rural environment (Croydon has more than 120 parks and green spaces) my pulse still quickens when I suddenly see a shiny new conker.

I conkur.

Cor a three'er

Love them too. Bumper year for them around here.

Thought it was just me who loved conkers as an adult. I think it’s definitely a nostalgia thing, the annual cheggy hunt we used to do after hours back at our primary school. We would wear dark clothes/‘fatigues’, sneak back into the school grounds with rucksacks as the light was fading and treat it like some sort of SAS mission to see how many we could get before the on-site nuns would catch us! Good times. This was only the late eighties BTW!

To bake or to vinegar? 🤔
Slipped skewer into the palm anyone?
Happy days.

If I was doing it now I'd drill the hole with progressively larger bits to match the string, countersink top and bottom to reduce stress-risers, and maybe inject epoxy into the inside. 😂

Another excited conkerer, nice photo too!

I lived in the country, but went to secondary in a big town with no conker trees and me and a mate used to actually sell them to kids at school in the early eighties 🤣 No idea how much we got, but it'll have spent on goodies 😋

One of my primary school photos has me with a big cut on my forehead from a conker match with my brother 🤣

As a Kingston Poly student I also remember being excited to find sweet chestnuts that were big enough to eat in some London Park, possibly Richmond. We cooked them on the stove on the old boat I was living on and they exploded everywhere 🤣

Among many things I love about Autumn!

I used to be obsessed with them as a school boy, remember going down to the park collecting them with my dad.

My best ever conker was a 29er. Makes you think

The old skewered palm was an autumn injury in our house, doubt it's quite as common these days. My brother actually did a conker full of epoxy but being cack handed 10 years olds, it did look very much like a conker full of epoxy.

Happy days camping in France a few years ago, it was one of those beautiful autumn holidays. Misty mornings, no one about really. Nice coffee sat outside. Anyway one night it blew pretty hard, we lay in bed listening to the trees and the thud and thump of conkers coming down. Simple pleasures

I dunno but this was a beautiful conker from tonight’s walk. That’s all.

Three small ones - rubbish - they'd have got lobbed in the hedge! 🤣

I used to leave them in the airing cupboard until the next year.

When I was in school conkers were like currency. They were frantically gathered and hoarded. Now they're just lying around all over the place.

Nature just can't compete with VR headsets and cutting edge masturbation technology.

My best ever conker was a 29er. Makes you think

So if your 29'er beat another 29'er did it become a 58'er or a 30'er?

Also "No S's" - Strings stamps or skims,

A 29er plus a 29er would be a 58er under our rules. You took your score and added the defeated Conker's score

kayak23Full Member
To bake or to vinegar? 🤔
Slipped skewer into the palm anyone?

As with many reminiscences I read this in the voice of Ron Manager from the Fast Show.

I still collect conkers when out walking the dog as Mrs JP makes washing powder out of them. Bizarre but true

Are you even human if you don't collect conkers when you find them? I seem to have passed my enthusiasm for them onto my 4 year old granddaughter, I'm pleased to say.

Mrs JP makes washing powder out of them.

You can't just leave that there! Tell us more.

Never mind .

https://jessicalawcreative.wordpress.com/2019/02/24/i-made-laundry-detergent-out-of-conkers-and-it-didnt-go-as-terribly-as-you-might-expect/

What I want to know is did anyone ever eat a conker, and how did it work out? We always thought they were deadly but that might have been to scare us

the detergent recipe is in this book. As you can see it is a very well used book in our house

I wondered too, how deadly they  actually are!

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2019/09/can-you-eat-conkers/

"Curiously, conkers are also poisonous to horses despite the tree being named after them."

Until this weekend I had forgotten the potential hazard which a recently dropped and undamaged conker can pose for a cyclist on skinny road tyres. Especially as they tend to fall in large groups!

Especially as they tend to fall in large groups!

conkers or road cyclists?

Conkers on the window sills in our house - wife says they deter spiders?

This time last year we were in temporary digs that were leaky, draughty and cramped. One of the things that made that place bearable was the huge Horse Chestnut outside. We'd head out and look for the 'best' one we could find then try again the next day. I loved the fact that without there ever being any clear criteria, we could always find the 'best' one and it always was a really great conker.

Anyway here's a great poem from Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris's excellent book The Lost Words:

Conkers on the window sills in our house – wife says they deter spiders?

Conker tree in our front garden, covered in spiders' webs. Draw your own conclusions...

Spiders are the good guys, they eat things that shouldn't be in your home. Don't deter them!

We have a lot of Conker trees and this year they are huge, the squirrels are all fat as ****

I have to agree, lovely things and happy memories of playing conkers at school and I definitely remember the pain when you got your knuckle hit by them!

They are one of those things in nature where you have to remind yourself it's just by pure accident, rather than design, that they are so beautiful to human eyes.

Lots of hungry squirrel's this year!

Same place as last year when I collected 100's of conkers this year I pocketed 4! Same amount of conkers but this year appears a lot more have been opened and squirrelled..........away by squirrels*

Sign of a forthcoming hard winter?

* I am not actually David Attenborough!

https://ibb.co/wh5NmF8

Only interested in the edible variety these days. I often return from a ride with jersey pockets bulging or enough in the pannier to fill a pan.

We did a conkers night at cubs last week

I remember spending ages dreaming up hardening strategies for conkers, now all the cubs have no idea how you n play!

Only interested in the edible variety these days.

Loads of the Sweet Chestnuts around us at the mo. Spikier case than the horsey variety

We have a small Horse Chestnut tree in the back garden. Last year we had maybe 20 conkers, not a single one this year. :/

Also did conkers with cubs the last 2 weeks. 1st week out collecting them, second week playing - i feel like some ancient goon passing on the rights of our ancestors these days, no kid knows how to play conkers (until now!), and also i have had to teach them, and even young leaders, how to make paper aero planes - WTF?

As per breadcrumb, in Stirlingshire, lots and lots of very unproductive conker trees this year. The usual ones that are weighted with bazillions of beautiful spiky husks were utterly devoid of any at all - why the heck was that? We managed to find other productive trees, but nothing like the crops of the last few years.

Loads around us (Munich) but no one knows how to play.
My 7yr old has been collecting from the school playground and we have a pile of about 30 that we are planning on using so that he can teach his mates.

Ah, I remember taking them home,  carefully removing the skin and filling with plastic padding...

Now of course I would choose something less hard, perhaps pyurethane or a hard silicone, maybe with some fibres in it.  Bit the problem of hiding the join would remain

Plenty about. Most years going back a ways we do an autumn walk to gather conkers, leaves, pine cones etc for my wife to take to school for her year 1 class to look at. She aims to get an unopened conker for each child so they can open it for themselves. Many of these kids have never seen a conker before let alone open one. Some years we have really struggled to get enough, usually about 25-30. This year there were loads.

We went for a stroll round the park and the locals were looking for conkers under a chestnut tree.
Do people not even have basic tree id skills?

Loads around us (Munich) but no one knows how to play.

No, but the locals use them as decoration on their dining table or window sill.