Fallen and Frosted

Today was the first real serious frost to presage the coming of winter. I note that last auumn this happened just 2 days later on Nov 7th. As it turned out we never really got that many more. I wonder what this winter will hold in store for us?

It's been a rather intense day at the office, trying to get all the code I wrote yesterday to work. I'm almost there. Just got a final few strange problems to sort out. My morning train was cancelled so instead of getting this Light Capsule, I was able to take a few extra minutes to walk up Wells Road and get some shots of the frost on the leaves. There was a wonderful brittleness underfoot. Although I rather like the shot of the bus stand I really like the one I've eventually blipped.

Not too many Horse Chestnut leaves fall as intact as this one. They are so much larger than the leaves of any other trees. Perhaps that's explained by the fact that it's not a native species. I was rather surprised to learn today that the Horse Chestnut was introduced here in the 16th century from South East Europe. That got me thinking about the game of conkers and it seems like that was an entirely British invention. No great surprise there as we have invented all the great sports of the world! I wonder, though, if there are native variations? Would some of our Greek blippers care to think back to their childhood? Is there an original Greek version of conkers?

Finally, this has led me to wonder whether kids still play conkers? It was such a big deal in the playground during my childhood but it seems to have passed my boys by completely. I asked them if they played as kids but all they could remember doing was lobbing them at people! Typical.