The folk-name for this particular variety (micraster) is a "fairy loaf". There's a rarer, more conical type (conulus) which is known as a "shepherd's crown", which is the name I gave to my short-lived self-publishing imprint.
I can't explain my fascination with these heart-and-star objects, but it always feels like a moment of significance whenever one turns up. They're infrequent enough that I can remember the place and circumstance of every one, right back to the very first that came up on a spade in our back garden when I was about eight. I described the finding of another in the post California Dreaming.
Of course, I also scan the edges of these fields for the glint of gold or the green of bronze, but have never yet found anything, in 40 years of looking, that didn't turn out to be a bit of old farm machinery.
11 comments:
Oh, and I see you use super-absorbent kitchen rolls. They really get to grips with nasty spills, don't they? Or is that white flock wallpaper?
Wow, those are beautiful. Here in Mexico the only fossils I've found are large masses of crushed shells. I'll never forget going to Joggins fossil cliffs on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia and seeing hundreds of fossils (it's protected, so I couldn't take any). The most remarkable ones seemed to be some sort of plant that looked like bamboo. They would be longhand half round shapes in rocks about the width of a bicycle tire. In fact they kind of looked like bicycle track fossils. All in black shale.
Unknown,
One of the pleasures of the British Isles is the geological diversity. With a car and a packed lunch you can cover vast ranges of time from pretty much anywhere.
What I like about sea urchins is their resilience, solidity and portability -- they're generally solid flint and palm-sized. They weather out of the chalk and roll around in fields, picking up character -- various stains and bits of damage.
The one of the left is intact (you can see the sutures between the plates of the shell and the points of attachment of the spines); the one on the right has worn away most of its surface, but still retains that unmistakable heart shape.
Mike
Zouk,
Sainsbury's best. I've recently changed alliance from Tesco back to Sainsbury. Waitrose, despite the "reassuringly expensive" hype, sells generally inferior products, I find.
Mike
I recently heard on the radio (could it have been The Now Show?) that someone-or-other likes to shop at Waitrose because they once heard a little boy there ask, "Daddy, does Lego have a silent t like Merlot?".
Collectors of witticisms will no doubt be put in mind of Brigette Bardot's reputed response to Jean Harlow cattishly pronouncing the final t in her name ("No, darling, the t is silent - as in Harlow").
Zouk,
An unlikely tale, given that Harlow died in 1937, and Bardot was born in 1934.
Mike
According to my extensive researches, it seems the "silent t" put-down was (allegedly) delivered to Harlow in 1934 by Margot Asquith (wife of Herbert).
Mike
That'll be it. Wish I could be bothered to do "extensive researches". Are you running a campaign against Waitrose/John Lewis, btw?
Zouk,
If I can improve the (truly shocking) quality of the in-store bread at the Romsey branch Waitrose, my life will not have been in vain. Even Tesco does a better baguette.
Mike
On a walk through Bushy Park, West London a month ago I spotted in the middle of a muddy path an "RCHA" (Royal Canadian Horse Artillery) brass shoulder-badge. Upper Lodge, Bushy Park was used as a King's Canadian Red Cross convalescent hospital for Canadian soldiers from 31 Dec 1915 to 2 Sep 1919. That implies the badge could have been lost almost a hundred years ago ... nothing like as old, of course, as your sea urchins, but still my best find for many years.
Martyn,
Yes, it is a great feeling when the Universe seems deliberately to have put something like that in your path. Some of my most personal talismans are of precisely that sort -- "lucky" finds that, it seems, only you would have noticed or prized.
Mike
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