Coasting

[sam]

To the sea, or not to the sea, that is the question.

What does Whitstable have to offer? This is a serious consideration when the Friday Night Ride to the Coast veers off course and winds up somewhere other than Brighton, which it does disturbingly often.



Let's see. "The meeting place of the white post" (Domesday book; not many white posts in 1086?) seems to be big in oysters, they still do as the Romans did and harvest nature's Viagra.

Whitstable is twinned with a handful of towns, including Říčany in the Czech Republic and Albertslund in Denmark. I note that Říčany, worth repeating just for the accent marks, and Albertslund are also twinned with each other. This makes me wonder if heartbreak will eventually come calling: three's a crowd. Perhaps the Kent town's 'friendship' with East Renfrewshire ("the first Scottish local authority to create a Facebook page") will help it through the jilting.

The population density was last recorded as 10.3 persons per hectare, a unit of measurement which can be visualized by visiting Trafalgar Square. The fact that I've already left the Whitstable wiki for the hectare one doesn't bode well.

I might do the ride just to visit Piggy's Diner, which is on the way.



related posts:
Vaya con dios
FNRtHH

[sam]

Sure enough, when a man at Wellington Arch asks me where we're going and I tell him, it doesn't take him long to say "Oysters!"

Ride report: flat with token hills, fast except when stopped. Piggy's didn't figure prominently in my enjoyment. My favourite bit was serving as a wayfinder in Chatham, standing alone in the quiet except for my "I'll take you anywhere, even Whitstable" bike, watching head lights turn into tail lights.

[Adam]

Sure enough, when a man at Wellington Arch asks me where we're going and I tell him, it doesn't take him long to say "Oysters!"

Ride report: flat with token hills, fast except when stopped. Piggy's didn't figure prominently in my enjoyment. My favourite bit was serving as a wayfinder in Chatham, standing alone in the quiet except for my "I'll take you anywhere, even Whitstable" bike, watching head lights turn into tail lights.

Ah - wonderful Whitstable.  Certainly a bit more urban than the journey to Brighton, but in a way it seems more foreign.  And of course now with the offshore wind farm, it has the added benefit of poetry in motion.

[sam]

Daddy was a wind farmer
his daddy too
Son, he said to me one day,
All this will pass to you.
I gazed upon the turbines
his legacy to me
I didn't have the heart to say
I wanted to be free.
The wind's been good to us
he continued in this vein,
Put food upon our table
gave shelter from the rain.
His chapped and ruddy face
shone proudly as he spoke
recounting all the ways in which
the wind kept us afloat.
I harbored in my heart
something nobody knows
finally I could take no more -
THE FAMILY BUSINESS BLOWS!
He rocked back on his heels,
as if grabbed by a gust
his wounded pride the cross I'd bear
for making such a fuss.
An argument ensued
high on the Beaufort scale
he told me all the reasons why
without the wind I'd fail.
The harder that he raged
the less my sails he blew
eventually he realised
what he already knew.
He went quiet for a bit
and I went quiet as well
the turbines stopped in sympathy
we didn't have to yell.
He sighed and squared his shoulders,
said, Tell me, what's your plan?
My dream, I said, has always been
to be a weatherman.