Ely Rock Eels put smiles on faces with hand-painted positive rocks

Members of the Ely Rock Eels (ERE) group tried to make as many people smile as they could with their hand-painted rocks as part of World Smile Day, which took place on October 2.

Elaine Nelson, who is a member of ERE but lives in America, even contributed a handful of yellow classic smileys in sunny California.

She said: “The world smile event looked like too much fun to pass up. It’s definitely something we can use more of these days. I had fun doing it.”

Bron Jones, a new member of ERE, painted smile rocks and dropped them at Anglesey Abbey on a visit to celebrate her mum’s birthday.

She said: “I think I hid around eight on the day. I heard some kids saying, ‘ah, I bet there are more!” just after seeing one disappear after our coffee. It was perfect timing. So cute.”

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Despite the rain, Sarah Follett and her two children chose to drop their smile rocks around the grounds of the Princess of Wales Hospital.

She said: “We love making people smile when they unexpectedly find a little bright spot of colour and love in these grey autumn days.

“And what better place to do it than where people are working or not feeling their best.”

Clare Day’s message on her smile rock simply read ‘life is short; smile while you still have teeth!’

Fleur Patten of ERE added: “We just couldn’t resist this day; 2020 has been a tidal wave of sadness and misery for lots and lots of people so this was just a little something we wanted to do.

“The classic yellow smileys worked particularly well on the day because it was so dark and rainy. We just wanted finders to smile. “We are always grateful for the finders who take the trouble to rehide our rocks and to those who take the time of posting their find on our Facebook group, Ely Rock Eels; that means a lot to us.”