Which way to go?
Tomatin, which I had always thought was Tom-a-tin but is actually Tom-aaahhh-tin (according to Henry), has an excellent burger van by the A9 which does the very best bacon rolls. It’s called TasteBuds and the guy who runs it is very chatty – as well as providing very good bacon rolls. Ask him about Danny Alexander and he’ll be chatting away for quite a while. So that was tempting. Hmmm.
Then there was Farr – don’t go too Farr I always tell Henry.
And then there was unpronounceable Coignafearn, right up the valley (or I guess it was a glen), that sounds interesting.
So which way?
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Coin-a-fern is undoubtably the safest place for a hen harrier. Or pop in and see what Richard Benyon thinks of the Land Reform Bill?
bimbling – thanks for the advice. Yes, Henry popped into Richard Benyon’s place too – laters!
does the van do mipit rolls too, for Henry?
Glen or valley? There is only one valley in Scotland (that I know of) and that is the Findhorn Valley. Looking at the signpost you are not Farr from there, but I am unsure of exact position. Personally I would divert and go and look at the breeding Slavonian Grebes…….but I don’t know if Henry would be too bothered!
Being a bit pedantic it’s actually a strath (glaciated) as opposed to a glen (river cut). They are both Gaelic words depicting different types of valley (though the differences are often not terribly clear cut).
Strathdearn is the name of the strath/valley where coignafearn (coy-na-fern) is. Though it’s also known as the Findhorn valley.
I’ll get off my high horse now.
Donald – thank you very much for that.
Hmmm, Strathcoe. The massacre of Strathcoe? Not sure m’self.
Correct me now 🙂
It is a rather arbitrary distinction which is often mixed up. It gets even more confused when you consider places like Glen Strathfarrar (though that could be to do with a cartographer who didn’t know what a strath was).
Quite why the word glen has entered common usage and strath hasn’t is a mystery to me. Especially given well known straths such as Strathclyde, Strathspey, Strathdee etc.
Bit of a pedant myself but I generally leave this sort of stuff well alone – but couldn’t resist responding to your certainty over the geomorphological origins. What fun!
Back to Coignafearn, it seems like it may become an oasis for lost raptors. Good luck to her.
It was no more than 3 or 4 miles from that signpost that my wife and I believe we witnessed a wildlife crime incident about a dozen or so years ago. I did report it to the police in Inverness at the time.
Coignafearn was always more the unspeakable than the unpronounceable.