A Curious Encounter in a Somerset Graveyard

It was one of those rare occurences in a graveyard, the feeling of being watched. Normally it turns out to be the graveyard cat or a concerned churchwarden who has received a tip-off about a strange person who keeps lying on the ground next to graves. On this occasion, it was was neither. I was engaged in capturing an image of a headstone [the 104th of the brief visit I was making to discover new material to share with you, the readers of this blog] and as I moved away, I saw a brief movement in the corner of my eye. Did someone or something wink at me?

I was almost struck dumb as I realised the flowers carved on the stone had faces. Now the Victorian stone mason may have been displaying that he had a sense of humour or I might have been imaging things and . . . as someone remarked on this blog before, it had nothing to do with 'Chardonnay' - I am Temperance!

Photographs were duly taken and scrutinised once downloaded to my laptop. There is, in my mind, absolutely no doubt these are faces and I was minded to recall the popular 1950s childrens television programme - The Flowerpot Men. Bill and Ben were the names of the two characters who lived by the potting shed. Their friend, I kid you not, was Little Weed - a weed in a pot - who was prone to shouting in a high-pitched voice 'Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!!!!!'

Phew, that's enough reminiscing, but could the character of Little Weed have been inspired by the flower faces on this headstone? Let me know what you think? I doubt there are other examples of this unless, dear readers, you know otherwise?


The flower above has a smiling face, while the one below looks very glum. Poor thing!