Me and my family went fossil hunting on Charmouth beach on the Jurassic coast over the weekend.
I’ll be honest we really didn’t have a clue what we were looking for and at first we were just whacking any old stone with a hammer and hoping.
Luckily we met up with some friends who knew what to look for and it was at that point the fun really started.
We spent most of the time sifting through the stones that had just been revealed by the tide going out and found plenty of Belemnites.
As I was stood walking slowly with my head bent down scanning the sand for fossils I started thinking how funny it was that there were so many people on the beach just staring at the floor oblivious of anything other than potential fossils. It felt like a metaphor for living life: so many of us are just heads down focused on what needs to be done that we often miss the beauty that surrounds us.
And yet despite this it also felt like a good metaphor for that same message that if you are not careful you will miss opportunities that are literally under your feet.
This made me chuckle and also feel confused about which metaphor was more appropriate so I decided that the best course of action was to simply look for more fossils.
At the end of the day we had a good haul that Debs lovingly laid out on the table of our Airbnb.
Inspired by small things
The beach closest to our Airbnb was a stone beach. Which I would not normally like but this was small round pea shingle.
This had two plus sides:
- It was super comfortable to lie on
- Each stone looked like it had gone through a stone tumbler
And I don’t want to sound like a nerd but I love tiny stones.
I found myself trying to find ones that I though would be good heads for a small characters in a fictional world.
My favourite is the one on the left with the small driftwood head and also the third front the right who looks like a fan of Jordi LaForge.
The thing that I have enjoyed most about these two beach visits is that it has reminded me how inspired I can be by the smallest things. How a small pebble can ignite an idea and be the start of an entire world.
This is how our world around us can inspire us to create - keep your eyes and ears open and follow your curiosity.
