A week ago I went for a walk in the woods. Not my local woods, but the woods of a big old country house I used to visit as a child. There were deer there, casually clustering under oak trees near the car park, where people gather at a distance to take photos, sometimes getting close enough to try and feed them before being told off by a warden. I watched the deer for a while, with all the others. It is coming to rutting season and the stags, so bushy and high antlered, so different from the slender, trotting does, are bellowing. I had never heard this sound before. It sounded like extended burping, low and rumbly, obviously a warning but also somehow an announcement simply of their presence.
I went off through the woods on a little used path, through jewel toned fallen leaves and impossibly big clusters of fallen chestnuts. I couldn’t help picking one up, then another till my pockets were bulging. There’s something so satisfying about the way they cluster inside their cases, all pressed together, impossible to reach without pricking a finger, so shiny and brown. As I kept walking, I could hear those same deep belching roars of territorial stags. A doe bounded across the path 10 meters ahead, and I stopped, while her cautious companions judged if it was safe to cross in front of me.
When I got home, I looked up what to do with sweet chestnuts. Last year, the ones I collected stayed decoratively in a bowl till weevils came out and they were thrown away. This year I planned to roast them.
Now, it’s been a week and I’ve just looked up how – I put them in a bowl of water first; ones that float will have air in from insect holes. Of my whole haul, only one does not float, and that turns out to be a conker. I think there’s a good chance my pockets are now full of weevils.
Bonnie Radcliffe 