POTHOLES

"Where does the word pothole come from?" asked my friend on the way to Keswick, as we bounced over yet another one on the narrow Lake District road.

Where indeed? So I looked it up. Originally, they were viewed as positive things; rock formations in the American West shaped like cyclindrical pots, either on the sides of mountains or in the beds of streams and glaciers. They were caused by water grinding a pebble onto soft rock over the course of millions of years. Once asphalted roads began to appear at the beginning of the last century, potholes came with them. If the road wasn't properly drained, then the water would work its way under the asphalt and erode the base, eventually causing part of the road to collapse.

Of course, what looks nice on a mountain by the side of the road doesn't look quite as attractive when your front tyre is fast disappearing into it. Even if they are the same thing.

Walter Blotscher