what are these little painted pebbles that we find in the countryside?

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Virginie Cousin takes care of a service of Intercommunal Social Action Center (CIAS) of Sézanne, the Solid’Age Space which offers various workshops for its members over 60 to break isolation.

Together, they achieve a real treasure hunt with small pebbles. “During a hike two years ago, we found a pebble in Esternay and the participants asked me if it was possible to make one,” confides the thirty-year-old. So at the beginning of the year, I was looking for pebbles in the fields. We did workshops to paint them and then we hid some in the 11 towns around Sézanne during our hikes.

An endless game

Once a pebble is discovered, either its inventor keeps it for himself or moves it, always indicating his discovery, what he does with it and where he moved it on one of the numerous Facebook pages dedicated to this activity.

But where does this unusual treasure hunt come from? “It’s called “ love on the rocks“, he comes from England. It spread in France during confinement. » explains Virginie Cousin.

An activity which, according to her, gives additional interest to walks in the countryside: “everyone is free to paint and hide pebbles wherever they want. The goal is to report your find on the page with a photo of the pebble and one of the place where it is hidden and to write the city and the street. When we find one, we go to the page written on the back and report that we found it and whether it will be rehidden or kept. Now, we can record them to geolocate them on a site. »

As for Virginie Cousin's pebbles, information on her little treasures can be indicated on the Facebook group #Trouvemongalet51 which brings together a large number of villages.

Moreover, for each department, there are one or two Facebook pages whose name begins with #Findmongalet followed by the department number.

Its first pebble was found in 2020, during confinement, and then, little by little, others, as far as Verdun, “on the fort of Douaumont and hidden in Montmirail”.

Since then, Virginie Cousin has worked to create her own, like the one discovered by a child near a wash house in Esternay.

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