The Mighty Walnut.

Walnuts lining the verges.

Our house is book-ended by two walnut trees yet we don't seem to treasure them as we should. Now and again when we go shopping and see the price of walnuts does it gives us pause for thought. Thought to go home and collect those walnuts.

For a few winters we pretended to be squirrels and hoarded hundreds of walnuts but each time the two of us forgot we had them and sadly they were then tossed out in the spring. Rather leave them for the real squirrels.

Yesterday afternoon a father along with his young son came to collect walnuts across the road from us. It was precious to see the little boy have such fun finding walnuts among the tall grass. Surely a golden nugget of a memory for him to tuck away for the future. Not many of these wholesome tasks left in this modern age.

This morning was our Leben im Dorf walking hour and despite it looking more like the beginning of dooms day with the appropriate wind howling alongside it, we met up for our walk. More a case of nobody wanting to be the first to throw in the towel because of a few rain clouds. Little did we realize that the wind was so strong in places that it buffeted us from side to side.

At one stage we walked under a walnut tree when a gust of wind came to life. Goodness me, I've never seen anything like it. Nuts were being shaken loose and hurled toward us with unseemly force and directness, but luckily we sidestepped that danger. Imagine having to report to my boss that I'd lost two villagers to flying walnuts...

Biggi