On the way back from Cockwood Harbour this morning I dismounted my bike at the top end of the bridle path – also cycle track and convenient dog-walking path (not too good when there is an excess of dogs or bikes!) – and said my goodbyes to Chris, who had something pressing to do at home (not the ironing); I had other things in mind, other than going to the gym, which I intended to do but just not yet… The gym would wait. The chestnuts, blown down in the recent storms and high winds, would not wait – or so I imagined.

Actually, I was right; no sooner had I parked my bicycle against the fence and kicked open a few prickly chestnut shells than three Orientals, a girl and two men, came along. At first I thought they were walkers only and, rather naively, I began to tell them that the chestnuts within the green prickly shells are good to eat. I don’t think they understood my words – their English was negligible – but it soon became apparent that they had come to the spot for the sole purpose of picking chestnuts; the girl carried a yellow carrier bag and they all began kicking and stamping, just as I was doing, on the green balls strewn over the length, breadth and sides of that section of path through the small wood.

“Are you Chinese?” I asked.

“Yes,” the girl answered when both the men looked to her to respond.

“Do you have chestnuts like these in China?” I inquired, stamping hard on a resistant clump of prickles.

“Yes, same,” she said with a nice smile that compensated for her lack of conversation.

“We the same too,” I said, stamping exaggeratedly like a clown, “Chinese, English, or Australian, we all stamp same way on chestnuts!”

They nodded, laughed and stamped in unison with me.

Quite a few of the chestnuts had not yet reached maturity for the expected shiny brown inner shells were partially white. Now I know that it is a little early for gathering chestnuts but, being an Australian, I’m not exactly an expert so I asked the girl:

“Are white bits okay to eat?” I showed her the two-toned nut in my hand.

“Ah, babies. That good,” she pointed to the brown end first and then to the white end, “that no good.”

“Poison?” I asked.

“No, don’t think so but.. the… the…” and she pulled a face.

“Texture?”

“Ah yes, texture, no good!” she was pleased.

“Floury?”

“Yes, floury,” she confirmed my suspicions.

Like silent movie stars, we carried on with our antics for half an hour or so, stamping and kicking our way down to the beginning of the path, where the fallen chestnuts proved to be less mature. I stayed a little longer at my task than the Chinese threesome, who had walked on, perhaps to the Chinese take-away just down from the corner (I didn’t see because I was too busy stamping).

My bounty stayed in my bicycle basket while I went to the gym, where I rowed for ten minutes on the rowing machines, ran more than three kilometres, at great speed, on the cross-country machines, and pulled weights on a machine designed to hone arm muscles.

At home again a short time later, legs aching a tad (from all the unusual stamping activity), and starving, I had a lunch of roasted chestnuts (not on an open fire – as the song goes). They may have been a bit small but they were delicious; and if, after reading this, you should happen to fancy some yourself, I have a feeling that chestnuts might be on the menu at the Chinese take-away on the corner near the garage – just before the bridle path on the right…