When our children were young I always used to take a polythene bag out with us when we went on walks. This was to collect treasures. You know the sort of thing, shells and pebbles if we were going to the beach, pine cones, leaves, conkers, etc on country walks. Our children have grown up now and probably outgrown that habit of collecting things. But I don't seem to have, because I still collect things when out walking. On the other hand maybe it was me all the time who wanted to do the collecting.
I love everything about autumn, the colours, the falling leaves, the spider's webs in the hedges, shiny conkers, walking on crunchy beech nut shells, the seed heads of summer flowers, berries in the hedgerows. And so I am often to be seen at this time of year, whether it is just strolling back from taking the grandchildren to school, on longer walks, or down at the allotment, clutching a handful of brightly coloured leaves, a bag of conkers, seed heads, rose hips, hawthorne berries. In fact just about anything which catches my eye and looks interesting.
I press the leaves to preserve them, they can then be used for craft activities with the grandchildren. This year I have decided to make some Christmas pot pourri so I will have plenty of natural ingredients to hand. I might spray some of them gold.
They look good also left as they are and simply arranged in a bowl next to a vase of berried branches for an autumn display. I have a table in the front porch where most of these 'treasures' are displayed. It's like a nature table and it changes with the seasons.
