Finally finished prising the roasted chestnuts from their shells, some 6-8 hours later, with plenty of breaks I might add. Cutting open the shells with a knife required some force which my hands are not used to. They were actually seizing up!

Despite various accounts of Chestnuts peeling easily out of their shells, I found that not to be the case with most of ours. They required a knife to slice them in half, and sometimes in quarters, and then what we call a grapefruit knife (see pic) to scoop out the flesh. They taste wonderful, just how I remember them, but gosh they are hard work. What you see in the photos is the end result of over 200 Chestnuts, most of them quite large and yes, I did eat a few along the way (ahem). Now I have to decide whether to freeze them or keep them in the fridge, where they’ll last 2-3 weeks. I think I’ll do half and half.

We are also waiting for our Hay Hut to arrive, just another few days now. I’m sure I’ll have some great photos to post of a very curious horse investigating his new “toy”.