Pebbleart Preston at Ashford, Kent

This delightful handpainted pebble originates from Pebbleart Preston, a Facebook site. I found it on a small car park bollard outside the Premier Inn North/Woolpack pub in Ashford, Kent. At first I didn't know what to do with it exactly, then went online for Pebbleart Preston, and discovered that it runs on similar lines to Bookcrossing, only without all the tracking: it seems that the only rule for these sites (and there are a few more apart from Preston) is just post on the appropriate site and either keep or leave somewhere else. Love it, great idea. I'd love to know the history of it.

Simone Weil in Ashford, Kent

SIMONE

WEIL

3 février 1909

24 août 1943

'IN 1942 SIMONE WEIL

JOINED THE PROVISIONAL FRENCH

GOVERNMENT IN LONDON

BUT DEVELOPED TUBERCULOSIS

AND DIED IN GROSVENOR

SANATORIUM, ASHFORD.

HER WRITINGS HAVE ESTABLISHED

HER AS ONE OF THE FOREMOST

MODERN PHILOSOPHERS.'

Simone Weils's grave is in Bybrook Cemetery near Ashford. She died of a heart attack and the 'official' report was that she effectively killed herself by starvation, although her biographers refute this claim, citing her wish to eat no more than the allowance of her fellow kinsfolk in occupied France.

Close to the cemetery, Simone Weil Avenue is named after her in 1983.

'SIMONE WEIL

This road is named in honour of Simone Weil,

the French authoress and philosopher who died

in Grosvenor Sanatorium, Ashford in 1943 at

the age of 34 years.

Bybrook Cemetery, where Simone Weil is buried,

is situated in the north side of the M20 motorway

and can be seen from here.'

Even in 1983 they still demeaned female authors by calling them 'authoresses'? Shocking. And could Bybrook Cemetery ever be seen from the corner of Simone Weil Avenue and Canterbury Road? It would surprise me.