Guess what? Mr M. and I found a Coco de Mer in Oxford!

No, not the kinky shop, although we know about those too, but the real legendary coconut!

Now, if you've never heard about a coco de mer before you might just think I'm a bit odd and a bit too excited about some kind of coconut.

I first heard about them when I studied in Swaziland. A coco de mer is a rare coconut that only growns in two of the Seychelles islands. The story goes that when those were not inhabited, the coconuts would fall off the trees and then some of them would be dragged into the sea naturally. Of those, some would reach mainland Africa.

So imagine what would you think of these weird, rather big objects that the sea would magically deliver to your coast randomly? Of course they were considered "gifts, practically. They became a very, very valued form of misterious currency. And their obvious shape was also highly regarded. (hence the name of the kinky shops, see?) When Europeans started going to Africa, they became fascinated by them as well, and it became a very sought after Victorian souvenir.

So you get the idea of their rarity and value. They still fetch high prices in art auctions and ebay nowadays (yesterday we found a seller that had some for just about less than 500 dollars). And we just got one of 5 pounds (10 dollars). The lady was very nice and she asked us what was it after she sold it to us. I explained her the whole story and she said "Oh, I thought that was a coconut, but no-one believed me". I explained the real value of them to her, much to Mr. M's despite (he thought it was just rude to pay 5 pounds and tell her they were acutally much more than that). Our coco de mer is not as round an even as the best ones out there, but it is very tactile, very smooth and shiny, and looks like an sculpture. Am I gonna like Oxford...