Conkers.

Rosie and I went to toddler group this morning at the church where Will is buried. There are some enormous horse chestnut trees there, and we usually scavenge around when we go to take flowers for Will's birthday to find a few conkers to put on his grave.
But today, as Rosie and I were walking out of the gate, there were showers of conkers tumbling from the trees around us, and a carpet of them under our feet - some like coppery jewels hiding in the grass, others still in their spiky cases.
Rosie put a few in her pockets, and I promised her we'd come back soon with Charlie.
We picked him up from school this afternoon and the first thing she told him was about all the conkers. Much to my surprise (I'd wondered if he might be getting too big for conkering!) he wanted to go straight up to the churchyard and find some more.
We flew home to fetch a couple of bags, then headed to the church in the warm autumn sun.
It was so lovely to see the pair of then scampering around, picking up the conkers on the ground and stamping delightedly on the shells to get to the conkers inside.
I still remember going to Mayer Park with my mum when I was little, taking a basket with me, and collecting as many conkers as I could carry.
Even now, there's still something magical about cracking open a conker, knowing you're the first person ever to see that particular one!
I hope, when Charlie and Rosie grow up, and maybe have kids of their own, that they'll look back on these happy, golden times together, like I do on my childhood.

Having said that though, I'm still not sure quite what I'm going to do with the two massive bags of conkers sitting on the hall table...

(I forgot my phone so I couldn't take any pics, so here's one of them playing with Gig, Charlie's guinea pig the other day!)