Sunday, March 30, 2014

Time and tide

Time and tide wait for no man.

Although the origin of this phrase is uncertain, it's clear that the phrase is ages old and that it predates modern English. The earliest known record is from St. Marher, 1225:

"And te tide and te time þat tu iboren were, schal beon iblescet."

Sometimes it takes us a long time to discover the source of a particular piece of plastic. For years we have collected small turquoise fish-shaped pieces. At school with our grandson, the revelation was at hand. He is a big fan of the plastic swimming pool filled with plastic balls and will while-away over and over again tossing the balls up into the air. When it was time to ride the horsey, as I removed him from the pool, to my amazement I saw embossed fish shapes on the bottom that I recognized as the same as our beach finds.





From Kehoe Beach 


Later, during our walk home we found another kind of tide and time: a sidewalk shopping enticement, a battery-operated plastic scuba guy clacking over and over again against the edge of a pool that was way too small for his enthusiastic strokes. Needless to say, our grandson was a big fan. And for me, something existential, yes, time and tide...