Wednesday 3 September 2014

Glas Bheinn Heather

According to the dictionary, the Gaelic word glas means either grey or grass-green, but neither is appropriate for this hill at the moment.  It's upper slopes are ablaze with heather, growing wherever there's enough soil, while in the less rocky lower areas heather appears to be absent.  The grazing regimes on either side are different, the upper left being Kilchoan common grazings which is largely sheep, while the lower right is Ardnamurchan Estate, which has sheep and red deer, but there may be another explanation for the difference.

5 comments:

  1. A rare spelling mistake Jon... Its upper slopes.

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  2. The upper slopes poor crofters, Lower slopes Rich landlord.

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  3. It's is actually correct with an apostrophe, being the 'belonging to' of the subject but it is convention to leave it out. After a lifetime of correcting my English, I still have not conquered the idiosyncrasies of its complex historical construction!

    How are the black bees doing on the heather?

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  4. Sorry, Derryck, I think I agree with Bob Jones. It's is exclusively used to mean 'it is' and the possessive is 'its'. Anyway, my wife says that Bob is right, so he's got to be. But thank you both - I'm always pleased to have my English corrected. Jon

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  5. The old ewe knew instinctively, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

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