Stone marker...

Even though I’ve had a busy few days - Kurt's parents are up for the weekend, and I’m gearing up for a surprise birthday party for him later this afternoon - I couldn’t pass up looking into a mystery.

It’s the first time his dad and step-mom are seeing my home so of course we had to give them the 50-cent tour this morning...and this eventually led us down to the cellar where a loose stone in the foundation had always caught my eye.

Whereas before I was always worried about disturbing the stone - in fear that removing it would cause the house to come tumbling down around me - this time I let curiosity get the best of me. Kurt's dad played Indiana Jones to my Lara Croft and, with great care, we pried the piece out of the foundation to discover a shoebox-shaped nook dug out of the loose dirt behind it.

The space held a bundle of damp old newspaper and a single bone.

The bone looked like a broken human rib...and needless to say it gave us a chill. So, with a brief apology in case we had disturbed something we shouldn't have, we returned the bone to its cranny, replaced as much of the dirt as we could, and set the stone back into its resting place.

The newspaper, however, we took upstairs to let dry for a few days. It will be interesting to leaf through it later and see how much of it is still legible...