The man, his wife, daughter and son were on holiday in Wales. That is South Wales, Merthyr Tydfil to be precise, they were visiting the mans cousin and discussing fossils.
“Fossils? The cousins husband asked, “there’s plenty of those near here.” The family exchanged looks of extreme interest and after a rather short and excited conversation they all decided to go fossil hunting. Immediately. It took barely five minutes to reach the farm gate, behind which lay a large number of interesting and freely available fossils. They were in the process of climbing over the aforementioned gate when to every ones surprise the landowner rode up on a horse. John, the cousins husband smiled and nodded at the man on horseback. “We’re just after a few of your fossils, if that’s alright,” he said in a friendly fashion.
The landowner smiled. “Of course, enjoy yourselves.” He waved his hand and rode on. The family finished climbing the gate and with a certain amount of relief began searching for fossils. It took ten or perhaps fifteen minutes of serious seeking for the seven year old girl to find two pieces of stone with beautiful fossil leaves on them. Her three year old brother was not quite as successful, but he wasn’t really trying.
The mans daughter was very happy indeed and when she took them to school for show and tell she was ecstatic. At the end of the day all was good.
And so the story might have ended at that point, if, they had not returned two years later and dad had not made the mistake of saying, “yes you can have any fossil you want.” The girl wandered among the fossils for some time, searching diligently for something really interesting in the fossil department. At last the girl walked up to her father and announced, “dad. I’ve found the fossil I want.” He smiled and followed the nine year old to her prize.
The mans heart sank like a stone as he gazed at the fossil chosen by his daughter. After all, he thought, it wasn’t there two years ago. He stood in front of the rock and scratched his head. It was a metre high and almost as wide. He estimated it weighed a tonne or more.
It took him an awfully long time to explain to his daughter why this particular fossil would not fit in the boot of a mark tree cortina.
Posted: Saturday, April 8th, 2017 @ 10:49 pm
Categories: Uncategorized.
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