I liked my friend Daren’s facebook statement earlier: “Today has mostly been an exercise in being SURPRISED BY WHAT TIME IT *IS/ISN’T! “. Quite. It caught us out – we hadn’t a clue. No harm done though – not like the time when I didn’t notice until someone told me on Monday morning, after I’d got to work a whole hour or so earlier than intended.

Today was focussed on Felix’s big birthday treat with his mates. We packed 6 of them off to ‘Action Zone’ – a laser combat game, in the woods at the top of the hill between Harrogate and Knaresborough. They had superb fun. Whilst they were in there, Elsie (a dog) and I went for a wander about in the surrounding woods. We were blessed with the discovery of a mature sweet chestnut tree, dripping with nuts.

The floor around the tree’s mighty trunk was carpeted in the spikey, fluffy cases.

I soon developed a technique – a sort of pressing, swishing motion with my foot – not to hard as to trample the nuts into the mud, but hard enough to open the ripe husks. After 20 minutes or so, I had about 1lb / 500g of prime, fresh, sweet nuts which I took home…

..and roasted. Beautiful.

As well as this activity, Elsie (still a dog) and I found two geocaches and generally had a nice trog through the woods.

Bits of rain, bits of wind, bits of sun. We were lucky though a the real heavy downpours of the day happened before and after we were out. A nice end to a nice weekend.