THE CONKERS ARE COMING.....

.....or are they?  There are some beautiful horse chestnut trees just over the road from where we live and I had noticed that the conkers were forming, so went over to get a photograph.

Earlier in the Spring the "candles" on these trees were magnificent and there are going to be lots of conkers, but probably much smaller than normal as the trees have been infested with the horse chestnut leaf-mining moth, which has affected many thousands of trees all over this country since 2002. 

These trees are no exception and look badly diseased, which is so sad.  The disease doesn't actually kill horse chestnut trees but there are fears about the long-term health of infected trees.  It is not feasible to spray large trees and in any event, I doubt our Local Council has any spare cash to do that.  I will be watching later in the year to see the size of the conkers although they didn't seem that much smaller when I blipped them in September last year.  

Mr. HCB has gone to cricket with our older son and grandson today - it was pouring with rain earlier, but I hope that being 30 miles away, meant that they didn't get any rain - whatever the weather, I'm sure they will enjoy some time together.

“Trees are poems 
     the earth writes 
          upon the sky; 
we fell them down 
     and turn them into paper,
          that we may record 
               our emptiness.”
Kahlil Gibran