Ready for Monday...

...sandwiches made, shirt ironed, blazer brushed, shoes polished, uniform all laid out, homework hastily completed and shoved into school bag...time to string the conkers then.

I am always taken right back to school days at this time of year when the leaves start to turn and fall and conkers seem to drop like manna from heaven. My brother and I would head out on our bikes on a Sunday morning up to the local pool and walk from one end to the other in the search for the the biggest, shiniest, newest conkers we could find.
We used to get quite inventive, not just searching in the fallen leaves around the base of the trees, but chucking sticks up into the branches, climbing on each others shoulders to reach, clambering up off our bikes and right into the boughs of the trees to get the sacred prize.

So with our hard worked for rewards stuffed into an old Lennons bag, we'd pedal like billy-o back home. Dad would be somewhere and we'd find him out and ask him to help us string the conkers for the next day at school. We were always delayed until after dinner, so we'd spend the rest of the afternoon sneaking about the house stealing shoe laces from everybody's shoes so we'd be ready for later.

After dinner and the obligatory father-children shoe polish, the time would be right. Dad would grab the old Swiss army penknife and set to with the corkscrew attachment to make holes through the middle of the biggest conkers. My brother and I dancing about trying to make sure that the holes weren't too big otherwise the conker would prove weaker in tournament. Of course we'd have a few warm up matches at home with those that didn't quite seem like champions. They we'd select our winners, wrap them carefully in a handkerchief each, slide them into the pockets of our blazers and give them a good luck pat. Up the stairs we went for bath time, tired but excited about the day to come.

I have to confess, I do still play occasionally these days... Who wouldn't?