Happy accident found us making a small detour Sunday last to Christchurch in Dorset, England. Not to be confused with Christchurch in New Zealand, which would entail a massive detour and at least a couple of flights. A few days prior we had been watching one of our current favourite programmes "Mortimer and Whitehouse, Gone Fishing". Don't panic, this post is nothing to do with fishing, which strangely, mostly also applies to the programme of that name. The fishing is just a mannequin upon which the programme loosely hangs.
Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing is a factual entertainment television show featuring comedian friends Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse. The show features Mortimer and Whitehouse reflecting on life after their shared major heart problems, while on a fishing trip to various locations around Britain. Wikipedia
Every episode is currently available on BBC iplayer. It is way more entertaining than that brief and reluctant undersold description implies.
What really matters is the banter and the surroundings, each episode being set in a choice part of the UK, with stunning camera work and interesting music. This particular episode took part in that green boat right next to the bridge. That is how we came to make our pilgrimage to Christchurch.
Banter - ...is short witty sentences that bounce back and forth between individuals, usually if not exclusively men. ( I added that bit because Wikipedia would never dare) Often banter uses clever put-downs and witty insults similar to flyting, misunderstandings (often intentional), zippy wisecracks, zingers, flirtation, and puns. The idea is that each line of banter should "top" the one before it and be, in short, a verbal war of wit. Wikipedia
Flyting - is a new one on me but apparently, it is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults between two parties, often conducted in verse. (Not in this case).The word flyting comes from the Old English verb flītan meaning 'to quarrel', made into a gerund with the suffix -ing. Attested from around 1200 in the general sense of a verbal quarrel. Wikipedia
Gerund - Here I am in severe danger of digressing while gerunding to the point of losing the plot entirely. I just like the word Gerund, which I first came across in that film called The History Boys.
Put simply you add "ing" to a verb like, "To Digress", so that I can then explain to you that I am now digressing. Game, Set, and Gerund.
If you speak English, and if not how are you reading this, then you spend a lot of your day gerunding, it's difficult to stop doing it. I suppose you could be reading this in Japanese using Google translate, but my faith in Google translate is not that well placed that I expect you to make any sense of this at all, quite frankly.
This is a closeup of the cutwater on the bridge. These normally face upstream as they deflect water and debris to protect the bridge structure. In this case it faces downstream as this river is tidal and the flow of water therefore changes direction twice a day.
Just next to the bridge is this ruin. The Norman House.
Begun in about 1100 under the de Redvers family, the castle passed to the Crown in 1293, and was attacked during the Civil War by Parliamentarian troops before being dismantled in 1651. The Norman House is one of the few surviving examples of Norman domestic architecture in England. English Heritage
At English Heritage which mostly deals with ruins, I suppose having no windows or a roof still counts as "surviving". If you have seen some of their open fields with scattered stones in, you will understand what I mean.
The bridge is on another one of those River Avons, I've mentioned before, while here, below, it meets another River Stour. There are five River Stours and nine River Avons in Britain. The name Stour derives from the Saxon for strong or mighty river, while the name Avon derives from the earlier Brittonic abona, meaning river. I hadn't realised, though, that there was anywhere in England where an Avon actually met a Stour, until now.
Founded in the 7th century at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Stour which flow into Christchurch Harbour, the town was originally named Twynham but became known as Christchurch following the construction of the priory in 1094. The town developed into an important trading port, and was fortified in the 9th century. Further defences were added in the 12th century with the construction of a castle, which was destroyed during the English Civil War by the Parliamentarian Army. Wikipedia
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