A devoutly Christian friend of mine at school whom I knew from the age of about 9 years told me…at the time…that God made all the fossils to test our faith. The question I never asked at the age of 9 years was why did God want to test our faith in the first place. If God made us as we are, put us on this planet, and wanted us to love and worship him for some strange reason, then why did it all have to be based on faith?
#MysteriousWays and all that, but it just seems like a pointless pursuit for an immortal, omnipotent being, doesn’t it? To create some tiny “living” entities in one’s own image that are imperfect. I don’t think there’s an answer in The Bible is there? Not really…
Anyway, it’s funny what you think about when the tide’s rising, there are endless rock falls and very little shore left to clamber over and quite a serious risk of being trapped for six hours. Oh, and the dog is stuck in a hole in a rock, is soaking wet from the sea, and you have to hoist her out thinking she may have a broken leg (she hasn’t) and then carry over the worst bit for 500 yards before we all get to a safer bit. Thank goodness for a childhood spent clambering over a rocky seashore with my schoolfriend, although Mrs Sciencebase had no such training and had to do her best.
In the end, we made it, but it was close, seriously. Second near drowning on holiday in recent years. Once we got up the slipway and along the prob (no, there was no brass band playing diddly-om-pom-pom, we rewarded ourselves with some delicious ice cream from the seafront kiosk at the Driftwood cafe. There was even a tub for the dog (two quid and no spoon!).
One other thing that my schoolfriend told me back then that has stuck with me – animals have no souls. Interesting, I did wonder about that ammonite stuck in one of those chunks of rock for millions of years. Dogs are animals too, as are humans, by the way.
One more thing from this holiday blog, why did they model the statue of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner that stands on The Esplanade in Watchet Somerset on Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and why isn’t he facing out to see?
Tomorrow we will take a step back in time and catch a train to save our ankles from the rocky shoreline and to save our souls from the sea.
