Bad news on the pebble front, I'm afraid.
On the Community trip for a few days down to the West Country, Archdruid Eileen gave me the job of collecting some pebbles from the beach for future ceremonies. I though that being an accountant would help me to ensure that I collected an appropriate number of pebbles. So looking through the Beaker Folk records, I found that in 2005, just 1 ceremony used pebbles. In 2006, clearly the sense of meditation on the Creation and sheer pebblyness had started to strike a real chord, and there were 3 such ceremonies. This year we are on track for 27 pebble-related acts of worship. By June 2010, we will be heading for pebble involvement every day, as far as I can tell.
At the same time, the size of the community is growing. So the number of pebbles per act of worship is now growing exponentially. In short, by 2015 I calculate the community will require something of the order of 20 million pebbles to satisfy its worshipping requirements.
That's a lot of pebbles.
So I filled the back of my beaten-up old beige Saab with as many pebbles, cobbles and other related small stones as I could from Bude beach, and headed up the Atlantic Highway en route to Husborne Crawley. Unfortunately, my calculation of weight is not as accurate as my calculation of pebble requirements, and I broke my back axle just outside Bideford. In coming to my assistance, a policeman noticed the cause of my predicament. I am now undergoing investigation for driving a vehicle over its maximum legal laden weight, and mining without a licence.
If only all policemen were related to Young Keith.