Tim Got Me Stoned, Too
Anneli’s husband, the redoubtable Tim, brought me back some cool rocks from his part of the same trip as the wife. They are a simple handful of stones from what looks like an old fishing town, Clovelly on the north coast of Devon, England. Here’s the Google Maps link. Here’s the Joint Nature Conservation Committee link for the natural history of the region.
I couldn’t remember the name of the town yesterday so I couldn’t write it up with Anneli’s story. (I was thinking Gravelly, probably by association…) Here are some pictures. My stones came from the beach there, where the boats get pulled up from time to time.
Check out those pictures, that town, those houses. Look where the town is built and how. Imagine looking out to sea past that fog hanging over the beach, wandering when the last tourist launch from Tintagel would be getting back - it’s only forty or so kilometers south - it’s late and the sea’s a little rough. The women worry about the birdwatchers coming back from Lundy Island, the innkeepers and the souvenir sellers alike; t’was ever thus.
Now here’s the stone-soup blessing of getting a small box of pebbles from halfway around the world. I start looking up just the bare facts based on the story they tell me and find those pictures, then I find the town’s own website, then I find the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, and that means I can check out stuff there on other regions of the British Isles I’m interested in. Later I decide to look up the Google maps view, see some cool stuff there.
So some kind souls carry those stones along on their trip, then back across the sea through the upper airs, tell me interesting stories about where they came from and how they picked them, I get on the Internet and am enriched again.