At the end of my Goblin’s two week holiday last month, the sun finally came out and we drove down to Aldeburgh, one of our favorite Suffolk beaches. The pebble beach stretches farther than you can see in either direction. At first glance it just looks like someone dumped endless pebbles onto the beach, but if you keep your eyes on the ground (and you’re observant) you can’t help noticing some of the pebbles look like someone has randomly sat down on the beach and drilled holes through the stones and then tossed them aside. I’ve found plenty of small pebbles with half formed holes with a small pebble trapped inside. I assumed the hole was formed by the smaller stone rubbing against a weakness in the rock and over eons the hole is formed. I was only partly right. This last visit to the beach I found several fossils and one of them solved the mystery…




I was running out of battery on m camera or I'd have taken some shot with the light on it. The small brown part on the right is clear like agate... The rounded back...it looks it has fossilized remains of hair or feathers? Of course the curly things might be small worms...and maybe I'm seeing things... A fossil of some poor sea urchin captured in stone... This little rock is way cute. The stripes (they're faint ridges) look drawn on and then when you turn it over... It looks like one of a character from one of Tim Burton' films. I didn't paint it. I found it like this. I've no idea if it's a fossil or just a rock, but I like it. My favorite and last treasure I nearly didn't keep. If the hole doesn't go all the way through the rock I normally toss it back into the sea so the waves can work their magic. This rock looked so weird I had to have a closer look... My first thought was it looked like fossilized frog spawn...that meant it might be a fossil so into my pocket it went. It's only when you see close up photos it starts to look more interesting. It could be a fossilized embryo and apparently these are really rare! A view from the right side... From the left side...you can see the hole that caught my eye... A close up of the strange bubble thingy... I looked up fossilized embryos online (I didn't even know if there was such a thing) and discovered that one of the world experts just happens to work at the same University as my brother-in-law. I'll be torturing my brother to see if he thinks the fossil-man thinks it's an embryo. If it is, I might give one of my treasures away to someone who'd treasure it even more!
aaaaah I just love it. maybe it was a pregnant worm and died there. go for it, bother your brother-in-law to have the fossil-man take a look at it. Tell them it’s all in the name of science, no forget that, they may come up and say it’s the so called missing link. this beach is going on my bucket list. Thank you Cari love the rock-fossils
@victoria
Hello Victoria! I’d definitely add this beach to the bucket list. When you get there, there’s a great fish and chip shop in the village (the blue one) and then there’s the ice cream hut near the boat pond…it’s a really lovely little place. And I think you may be right about my rock-pregnant worm thingy…I’ll let you know how my attempt to help science turns out!
I have the feeling that we are kindred spirits. I have a box of rocks that I have collected over a long period of time, that are not really of any value,but are interesting to me. I once created a koi pond and it took me over a year to collect the rocks to line the edge because they had to be just right….they had to have the essence of a great rock! LOL Drove my hubby crazy. We moved after that but he was completely unwilling to relocate the pond, so it remained in it’s perfection to continue adorning the yard we left behind! But there are many more rocks to find~! I enjoy both your stories and your blog!
@Nancy Hahn
I don’t know if I’ve always been a rock-chick (as a child I had a collection of broken bits of glass I’d found on the ground – I thought they were pretty), but I love stone now. Your lost pond sounds lovely. Yes, I know that feeling…it has to feel right…or it’s wrong! This spills over into most aspects of my life. Getting dressed is the worse for me…somewhere in my brain every morning I want/need to reinact Pretty in Pink…(the part where she’s getting dressed with a cool soundtrack in the background) only I don’t have the wardrobe (I need to lose weight so I can fit into cute funky clothes) so if I’m going out and want to look nice I often end up wanting to scream. I’ve had hysterics on several occasions which always unnerves my Goblin as he doesn’t get it… “Just put something on, what’s the big deal?” my reply, “I haaaate my clothes!” He just rolls his eyes. I did find a pair of linen trousers a couple weeks ago that were perfect except I needed to shorten the legs. I finally got round to it Saturday so I put them on and found I’d lost weight and now they need a belt. At least they’re the right colour and fabric and I know I’m less fat then I was two weeks ago. That’s a bonus.
Life is weird, and I love it that way! 🙂