Isostatic uplift following a glacial episode is difficult to comprehend — but in the Baltic region the changes brought about can easily be appreciated during a single lifetime. In the Stockholm Archipelago the rate of uplift has fallen off, but the land is still rising from the sea at a rate of about 5 mm per year. That’s 5 cm per decade, and 25 cms over 50 years. When I first built this magnificent jetty the water was quite deep enough to moor our rowing boat alongside under all conditions, given the rises and falls of water level in line with pressure changes and changes of wind direction. Now, however, the water is too shallow to moor the rowing boat alongside, and algal blooms have made the water quality very poor as well. This in turn leads to increased rates of sediment accumulation, and already the sound between the mainland and our little island just offshore is occasionally devoid of any water at all, particularly during the winter.
The only consolation is that as isostatic uplift continues, the size of our little piece of real estate gets bigger every year!
You didn't tell us your real name was Brörn Jonberg...
ReplyDeleteMy wife is the Viking — with all family roots in the Stockholm district. I have no Viking blood in me, as far as I know, although there are bits of research showing that the Vikings did settle in South Pembs — and that’s where most of my ancestors came from.......
ReplyDeleteNice Jetty.Has it been pier reviewed?
ReplyDeleteIt has indeed, and it has been designated as a site of special cultural interest — or in other words, a work of art. The Swedes are very artistic people.
ReplyDeleteI have friends who hail from Plymouth whose son went to Sweden to work and live. Their surname is Rickard, possible shades of Viking therein?...My friend is currently over in Gothenburg area visiting grandchildren etc as he is for several weeks each year.
ReplyDeleteNear us lives Martyn Whittock who, along with his daughter Hannah, are academically very knowledgeable on the Anglo - Saxons, paricularly in Wessex, and also the Vikings.
Coincidentally,Janina Ramirez has just had her programme "Secret Knowledge: the Art of the Vikings", about the effects of Viking culture on the British Isles repeated on BBC4 tonight.
Anyone a Bernard Cornwell fan? Is Brian Uhtred?? Or just plain Re - tread?
ReplyDeleteBy the time you reach my age, you have had a lot of retreads.
ReplyDeleteI'm not far behind you!
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've read, The Normans were just Vikings by another name? Along with most of the inhabitants of eastern and northern England. Perhaps that might explain the British peoples former voracious appetite for conquest, rape and pillage?;resulting in the British Empire?
ReplyDeleteTheir language is still with us.When i was a lad we laiked out and people did flits if they could not pay their rent.I grew up in the West thridding but now live in the North thridding.This morning i had a walk on the fell tops and down through Appersett.When going down to Headingley i have called into and had a pint at the Skyrack where some of the party have been known to become well and truly riggweltered,a term still used by the sheep farmers here in the Dales.You cannot dig your garden up here without finding another hoard.They do say that up to a couple of generations ago that a Scandanavian would find it easier to understand the farmers in Swaledale than someone from London would.Then again having spoken to one or two that may still be the case.A party still come over once a year to visit the memorial in Stamford Bridge.
ReplyDeleteViking 1 to Viking 2: (Sigh) Here we go again - more rape, more pillage...
ReplyDeleteViking 2 to Viking 1: (Sigh) Yes, you'd think they could find us something else to do...
I grew up at DeepCAR**, north of Sheffield. Later we moved 20 miles beyond the West Riding border into Derbyshire to Chesterfield which is littered with the placename suffix "GATE"(another Viking place element). Doesn't San Francisco have an America Football team [or whatever] called The LAKERS, Gordon? Just goes to show the Vikings didn't stop at Newfoundland, but went a lot further west!
ReplyDelete**DeepCAR's name has the same derivation as the Carr in Ster Carr. Both are important European Mesolithic settlements.
Thanks Gordon:
ReplyDeleteI think there is some real truth to this hypothesis! I truly think that this is a subject that Historians have neglected for far too long:Another neglected aspect is the Vikings contribution to the population of Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The populations of Scotland,Wales and Ireland made a massive contribution to the conquests of the British Empire. Or has this truth been neglected deliberately because it's not P.C.?
I believe that the Vikings that came into the Dales were Norwegians that moved here from Ireland.There are the remains of a longhouse on the flanks of our angel mountain,Ingleborough.
ReplyDeleteJanina Ramirez's repeated BBC4 programme, Secret Knowledge: the Art of the Vikings, in which she explores the effects of Viking culture on the British Isles through interpretations of artefacts from the Swedish National Museum, is worth a look. It was repeated last Wednesday, 18th July.
ReplyDeleteGordon I have done a lot of what we call caving/cave diving here in the Mendip Hills and Potholing in the Dales. You comments about Ingleborough ( a fine hill) have brought to mind an interesting question; Is the word Pothole; used exclusively in the north of England; of Scandinavian origin?
ReplyDeleteHi Alex,i think the word pot could come from the word pit which has germanic origins.This is probably the case as i am led to believe that caves run horizontally and potholes vertically.Then just to confuse matters Hull pot appears as Hulpit on an old map and hulpit derives from a Swedish word meaning help.
ReplyDeleteIn 1027 King Canute [Cnut] (1017 - 35) made a visit to the town of Dunholm [Durham], where he walked bare foot for 6 miles to visit St Cuthbert's shrine. King Canute returned as a gift some of the land that had been taken from the Bishops of Durham by his Viking ancestors.
ReplyDeleteGordon, I used,as a youngster, to be asked if I were laiking (your spelling),meaning was I playing? (usually they meant playing football) in your West thridding, circa A.D. 1955 - 59.
ReplyDeleteWell, “Lek” is the Swedish word for “play” so that makes perfect sense.......
ReplyDeleteThat is where we also get the name for the courtship ritual of Black grouse which is known as a "Lek".
ReplyDeleteGordon: I think we might have accidentally stumbled on a whole new field in the study of cave history! I shall consult some of my cave history and history of cave science tomes and report back.
ReplyDeleteCheers
Alex