Painted Rocks

[Aesopfable]

AIBU to hate the painted rocks people are leaving all around the place. Yes it might be a fun activity but if your kids want to paint rocks then do it at home and keep them there. When I walk through woods, or by fields then I want to enjoy the natural scenery not gaudily painted rocks very few yards. It is little better than littering the countryside.

Beauty spots are generally littered with cigarette butts which are far more toxic than little painted stones

How exactly is a rock litter?

What kind of art is allowed in the country side? This?

Or this?

I get the same feeling about littering woodlands with them, as when I see a beautiful old piece of wooden furniture that some inept person has ‘upcycled’ to sell. The before pictures usually look nicer.

If you like the stones that’s great: keep them in your own house, garden, local cultivated park, or community-rock-snake-henge-thing.

I don’t mind them in the village - I think they’re quite sweet and it’s nice for children to spot them - but I agree that they aren’t great in the countryside. The countryside is beautiful on its own terms, and people to there to experience nature. The painted rocks aren’t enhancing that.

I’m totally with you @Aesopfable I like to imagine I’m far away from civilisation, plus I think that nothing is more perfect than actual nature.

One thing I’ve noted during lockdown is the number of people who think that everyone else will love what should be their personal thing (thinking karaoke blasted out or mini family orchestras in the street on Thursday evenings etc)

It’s like a new form of litter.

Disclaimer: within towns/ streets it doesn’t bother me, nor in children's parks, but in the countryside it does.

@mancheesballs tbh, I can’t stand either of those examples. Nor those awful, awful statue things that are placed in sand for the sea to cover/ reveal them as the tide goes in and out.

Actually I agree OP. People think it is fine to deface the countryside in whatever way. It's ugly and likely toxic and cheap and tacky. And they don't own the space.

The sort of people who do it would be apoplectic with outrage if they arrived home to discover that someone had painted the fence in their garden in gaudy colours.

Graffiti is a good term.

What’s all the smug Stonehenge 'gotcha'? Stonehenge has massive historical significance. Would I like to see a brand new Stonehenge built in the countryside today? Absolutely no way.

'Nothing more perfect than actual nature'? So discarded farm machinery doesn't bother you, broken gates, rusty fences - all the signs of farmland cultivation over the years - Putting the country side on such a pedestal seems rather misplaced.

Well farm machinery isn’t actually nature is it? Farmers can be disgusting litterers too

And actually, yes I do think that broken gates and rusty fences spoil nature.

Exactly, this ire against a few painted stones seems somehow misplaced

People going on about 'defacing the countryside' should take a look at a real working farm...
Anyway I do paint rocks but I am not a 'rock wanker' and use acrylics and place them in an urban environment.

Oh and I suppose we say 'rocks' instead of 'stones' or 'pebbles' is that it sounds snappier.

Misery

In my area they are photographed and put on FB local chat. Cue outraged mothers accusing others of taking their little darlings stones because they are not in photographs

The lovely dry stone walls that stretch across the Lake District and other places would never get planning permission now

Actually I do find the whole think irritatingly twee and I don’t want to see artificially painted stones in a bluebell wood, but I understand why people enjoy doing it.

Better in towns and villages than in wild areas.

And it is nothing like littering!

But farms are equivalent to towns and cities and villages - in the countryside, but not actually the countryside. Again, I don’t understand the farm 'gotcha'. Farms can be ugly places equally spoiling the countryside.

Stonehenge exactly, not "Rockhenge"

I don't like them either. I also hate fairy door and trees with ribbons all over them.

YANBU

Rocks around urban areas are ok but not in the countryside.

How are the fairies meant to get in and out?

@Macncheeseballs, our fairy tree has some rope hanging from a limb. I believe they get in and out using that

I resisted the temptation to tell the kids that actually the rope was left over from when someone hung themselves and nobody bothered cutting the rest of the rope down (true story)