Turns to stone

Knaresborough is a small town in North Yorkshire. You can tell it's a town rather than a village because it has a Woolworths. It also has the original Petrifying Well - The townsfolk started to franchise these in the 1960s and there are now a number of successful wells around the UK. In my opinion though the Knaresborough one is still the best, and not just because it's in Yorkshire.

The idea is that you take something normally fluffy and nice, like a teddy bear, a hat or a little kitten, and you then hang it up (carefully and gently in the kitten's case!) under a little waterfall thing. Because they add large quantities of calcium to the water, the things that have been hanged go hard and appear to turn into stone after a few months. It works well. It's not as efficient as using a gorgon but those guys are in short supply these days due to the Greeks not playing ball with the EU's labour market policies.



Last time I visited this particular branch of The Petrifying Well, I had left behind my friend (the one for whom we've since been using the cover story about "moving to Australia") to transmogrify him into a big rock that would be suitable for display in a museum or sculpture gallery - some of the better museums will pay anything up to fifty English Pounds for a good quality fossilised man - it's a good way of earning extra income!

He was nearly ready but still a bit soft in a few places so will need a couple of months more before he can be moved to a dryer place.