 |
| Whitstable: oyster-trove since Roman times |
A very happy weekend in the Garden of England, spent with AC-friends in Canterbury and topped off with a swim and some local oysters in "the meeting place of the white post": Whitstable was recorded as "Witenestaple" in the Domesday book.
 |
| Oyster-talk |
 |
| Crab-walk |
As the tide was out, the sea exceedingly shallow and the rough-pebble beach harsh underfoot, the swim was so-so but everything else made up for it, not least the etymology of the word 'swim' as divulged to me on the road: PIE root *swem- 'to be in motion'. Cognate terms in Old Irish and Lithuanian mean 'to hunt' and 'to chase'. The non-Germanic languages opted for PIE *sna- 'to swim' which gave rise to the 'nare', 'nager', 'nuotare' > N: 'natation' variants.
 |
| Ulf in foot-sore motion: did the verb 'swimming' narrow to its current meaning because of jagged stone-beaches such as Whitstable's?! |
 |
| A first outing for my new GoPro: I clearly didn't crack it, but then it didn't drown either, which means there's hope. I just need a bigger, clearer, nobler sea... |
how elevating!
ReplyDelete