I’m still on the island between Plek parking and Dubois at Groenendaal. Well, not actually but in a literary sense: I’m following on from my posts on the Oak and the Sweet Chestnut.
Today is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and there is a saying in French ‘𝐴̀ 𝑙𝑎 𝑆𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒-𝐶𝑟𝑜𝑖𝑥, 𝑐𝑢𝑒𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑒𝑡 𝑔𝑎𝑢𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑖𝑥’ or ‘At the celebration of the Holy Cross, pick the apples and knock the walnuts from the tree’.
It doesn’t seem a good year for walnuts, I saw none in the tree and just this one on the ground. Near where I live there are also a few trees which usually are quite prolific but not this year.
Foreign? This is the meaning of the prefix wal- in walnut. The same old Germanic word for a foreigner lies also behind place names like Wales and Wallonia.