Yesterday, I taught the kids how to play conkers. There's a horse chestnut tree at R*'s school so the kids there collect them but they don't know how to play conkers so I figured I would teach her this most English of games. As a kid, I had my five seconds of fame playing in a conker competition with the shattering of my conker being broadcast on local TV news. My opponent went on to win the competition with a very seasoned seven year old indestructable conker.
On Sunday, we trooped down to Windsor Great Park and collected a bag of them. It's a little early in the season but wasn't hard to find some. At home, I attached the strings and we were ready to play.
I was soon reminded it can be rather painful to play conkers. It's easy to whack yourself. R* even went and put on her skateboarding pads. After I lost to R*, I set the kids up with a hanging conker to practise on but unfortunately, Kieran whacked himself in the nose and head! So, ok, maybe there's a good reason conkers isn't played much!
Still, I might keep some conkers in a dark corner of a cupboard. They could prove useful in several years.