Ever since he received his Strider bike for his birthday, Elliot has been keen to be out and about. Every morning starts with ‘Mummy, bike ride?’ and continues until we go. Lately, we’ve been stopping to find horse chestnuts, or conkers, as they’re called in the old country. We line up all the conkers we find and count them for awhile, and then fill Elliot’s pockets with them, where they jiggle all the way home. We put them on the window ledge that’s become our unplanned nature shelf, along with a Really Big Pinecone and some tulips bulbs I’m unsuccessfully trying to force in vases (damn you, Pinterest). The weather is about to turn, it seems, so this morning might be our last conker adventure.