Foraging for sweet chestnuts sounds so cute doesn't it? If you're picturing me with fingerless gloves, wellies and a wicker basket (amongst my usual, unusual getup) then you'd be sorely mistaken. We stumbled across the fallen bounty by chance; in my case that's most likely to be literally – if there's a tripping hazard around I'll be sure to find it.

It wasn't long before I discovered just how prickly the outer shells are (ouch!) so I had to improvise with two sticks to try prising them open which looks particularly stupid but the squirrels had already whisked away the majority of the chestnuts so we had to work with what we found.

Many of the sweet chestnuts were teeny tiny but we did find enough decent size specimens for a bowlful.

That's another autumn 'must do' struck off the imaginary list.

Sophie