This rocks...

I've been pondering stones and rocks recently and last week I set out to go for a walk on the beach, take some photographs and collect some pebbles. It didn't happen. It started to rain just as I got over the bridge towards Morecambe, so since I was out that way I called in to see my mum and dad.
I didn't think about it until I was there, but of course my dad has loads of stones - so I took some photographs. 

This is green agate, held up to the window and cropped tight (partly to make sure my fingers didn't show!) It it is a very thin slice and the light came through it so well.

No idea what this is called, but it has a wonderful, almost animal like pattern on it and is quite smooth, well obviously it is bumpy in form, but the pattern itself isn't really textured.

This is the same rock but from a different angle, showing the pattern going through the rock, but also the shape.

This is pale in colour and has some small pink quartz like crystals that sparkle.

A fossil, this time on a red background because the white of the windowsill wasn't giving enough contrast.

These are in a bowl of pebbles my dad has polished in a rock tumbler. One of the sounds of my childhood as he used to make jewellery from rocks he had polished.

I loved the contrast between the smooth polished side and the rough coating on the outside, that was almost like a fine bark.

This is a close up of the centre of a geode, I think it was an agate one. Smooth polished surface and then tiny crystals on a curving surface.

This was back of one of the geodes I think, and I was caught by how a chip to the rough, normal looking surface reveals what is underneath.

This was the back of another small geode. It has a lovely shape, the right size to sit in your hand, and gently curving with a pitted surface.

A piece of green serpentine from The Lizard.

Striations in granite.

Shiny, wet granite with lichen.