Low Tide	05:09 (0.90m)
High Tide	11:34 (2.50m)
Low Tide	17:45 (0.70m)

Sea temperature: 17.2
Sea conditions: little choppy waves, very pleasant
Weather: sunny with a cool breeze
Joined by: The Usual Suspects
Topics of conversation:
The Theatre Fete had taken place in the Freud family fields yesterday and it had been a hot, sunny afternoon for a change. My dear old friend (she's not old, we've just been friends for a while) the face painting star and I had a stall turning a bunch of small kids with faces covered in ice cream into butterflies, Spiderman, dragons and so called 'Celts', and despite not looking forward to being stuck in a gazebo all afternoon we'd had a lovely time with a great crowd and a lovely atmosphere. As I mentioned 'celtic' tattoos, which were all the rage with the older boys we drifted into a discussion about what the term 'Celt' means and it's derivation as The Pirate pointed out its emergence in the 18th century and it's misuse. I'd always thought I'd understood this but questioning on the beach made me, in turn, question my understanding so I thought I'd look it up and online and it's fascinating how many references there are that refer to the term being 18th century/500BC, correct/derogatory so I've asked my Archeologist/All Things Ancient and Mysterious friend his views, which are (in brief) as follows:

It is an incredibly problematic term on so many levels. It shouldn't be used in a prehistoric context as the Keltoi, where the term comes from, were only a tribe in the North of Italy. The tribes all had their own identity and would never have self identified as Celt. The use of the term comes in on the back of a rise in Welsh, Irish and Scottish nationalism in the 18th and 19th century. The only way it can be strictly used is as a way to describe a group of languages which have similar shared characteristics (p celtic and q celtic), but I would never use Celtic as a term to refer to a group of people. The concept of pre Roman Iron Age identity is complex. For example the Brigantes, who are seen as the group around Yorkshire, are described as a confederation of tribes. If I was talking about the later Irish, Welsh etc. I would use Gaelic, Cymric. John Collis has written extensively about this.

Link to the book: Celts: Origins and Reinventions

Running out of gas - which DK and family had done last night. They had been in the final throws of having their last family meal together, before Legs and The Boy take off to the US for just over a month, when it became apparent that there was no gas left in the tank. This is a tank that is supposed to be connected to the supplier and discreetly inform them when it is getting low so that this never happens, but it did. And it did so just as the slow marinaded pork, that The Boy had frozen so that he could slice it wafer thin, was ready to blast into a wok. The whole feast was bundled into the car and brought down to our house and cooked in our kitchen where we had just finished our early supper/late lunch. My Old friend had brought strawberries and meringues from the fete, as well as hand made chocolates from The Pirate's No.1 Son's deli, which we were just finishing off, so the table was cleared and relaid and the next round started, a little like a second sitting in a restaurant. It made for a delightful impromptu evening even if it was stressful for DK's family, and even though, having not been drinking recently, I forgot that I'd already drunk at the first sitting and joined in on the second, leaving me a little fragile this morning.
We were surprised to Sara this morning as she's been away on a course and The Poet had led us to believe she wouldn't be back today, but it was lovely to see her. The group is all present and correct, albeit briefly as The Artist is off on a cultural adventure to Amsterdam tomorrow. She was feeling loathed to leave the village now that the warmer weather has finally arrived and the sea is warming up. She was clearly on a high as we all left as there was a close call when both she and DK backed out of the car park at the same time and had a narrow miss. We all blamed DK, because we could, but The Artist did admit she normally lets him go first. It wasn't the only close miss this morning as my dog Willow stepped out into the road just as a builder's van was travelling too fast round the green. It wouldn't have been his fault if had had hit her, she shouldn't have been there and I screamed at the top of my voice, seeing it all happen in slow motion. She stopped just at the last moment and my heart has just started to slow down. I MUST be more vigilant and less relaxed about the dogs, who follow me everywhere around the village without leads, now that the holiday season is upon us.
My phone has a hardware fault at the moment so the laziness of letting Photostream do all the work has meant I haven't had photos readily available to put up here on the blog but The LE sent me some from our weekend coffee at the huts. The Pirate and I discussed the policy, which I almost stick to of not putting photos of us all online, but these are just too good not to share, especially the one of him, which The LE sent to me titled Prince Albert sports the Laura Ashley look.