Inbetween Places

I love those places that sit in neither one world or the other. The edges where things meet. The Sea Shore, Bogs, Marshes, those high plateau mountains in Venezuela - Tepuis I think. I really, really love bogs and marshes though and there are such a wide variation in them, subtleties of distinction but distinct none the less....

bog (bôg, bg)

n.

1.

a. An area having a wet, spongy, acidic substrate composed chiefly of sphagnum moss and peat in which characteristic shrubs and herbs and sometimes trees usually grow.

b. Any of certain other wetland areas, such as a fen, having a peat substrate. Also called peat bog.

2. An area of soft, naturally waterlogged ground.

So although bog is a word that is used to describe any soft waterlogged ground, if you are being specific, it is an area typified by peat - but then we also call them peat bogs too....

As for a marsh, well...

marsh (märsh)

n.

An area of soft, wet, low-lying land, characterized by grassy vegetation and often forming a transition zone between water and land.

So marshes are bogs that have grass, peat bogs are bogs that have peat. But in a marsh, not all of the ground will be soft - so it will not all be boggy and in a peat bog there may well be som grassy areas that are marshy.... *laugh*

So a salt marsh....

salt marsh

n.

Low coastal grassland frequently overflowed by the tide.

Is a marsh that has high levels of salt because it is so low lying. This results in a different look. Some areas of a salt marsh would be boggy as well I guess but there would definately be no peat.

Willow Carr is one of my favourites of these types of habitat - willow trees grow out of pools of water and little islands of mud sometimes covered in lush grass.

Oh and I missed out fen

fen (fn)

n.

Low, flat, swampy land; a bog or marsh.
fen¹

n

(Earth Sciences / Physical Geography) low-lying flat land that is marshy or artificially drained

[Old English fenn; related to Old High German fenna, Old Norse fen, Gothic fani clay, Sanskrit panka mud]

and swamp

swamp (swmp, swômp)

n.

1.

a. A seasonally flooded bottomland with more woody plants than a marsh and better drainage than a bog.

b. A lowland region saturated with water.

2. A situation or place fraught with difficulties and imponderables: a financial swamp.

I suspect this is all about as clear as mud!

Bog - generally peat, upland, acidic, with a characteristic brown water. Poorly draining.
Marsh - grassy, lowland, not acidic. generally moving water (although it may move through slowly)
Salt Marsh - Marsh flooded by sea.
Swamp - Floods in wet season and has more trees
Fen - Any of the above.... but often has had the influence of man. Also an area of the UK in East Anglia that was considerably drained

So fen, bog, marsh and swamp can all be used to describe the same land but you can not describe all such places as salt marsh or peat bog or mangrove swamp.

I love the way words have a direct and obvious meaning but they also have connotations... Like swamp sounds much more dangerous, and bog is somewhere you could get stuck....

no idea if I have helped Mel or completely confused you *grin*

Lush Life

I wanted to talk about my favourite shop, Lush.

I just love their stuff, it smells beautiful. It does the job. The shampoo bars wash my hair, last ages and don't irritate the dermatitus I get round my ears and the shampoo that I can use year after year with doing that, just doesn't exist elsewhere. Their bath products are fun and exciting and turn baths into a luxury treat. Thei shower jelly froths up on my sponge but doesn't leave my skin heavy with that soapy residue.... do I need to go on?

For me, the definition of 100% hand made and 100% natural don't enter in to it. Their products nuture and nourish me in ways the products in the chain stores do not and can not. And it isn't just me. My nephew gets eczema and their bath products do the same for him.....

I trust Lush as a company though, to be as far down the natural and hand made route as any main stream, high street company can be - and to keep pushing that boundary further and further. but they do need to make money! And I am no chemist so i can not comment on the ingredients.

They are a company with morals. They have charity products. They had leaflets about palm oil in their shops and removed it from their products (I think) before it became a hot topic. They recently started promoting the cause of the greyhound to.

Now I know some people walk in and are completely turned off byt the smell in the shop. And I admit I have very little sense of smell... but... the overwhelming smell is linked to another important aspect of their ethos. Waste!

Now this may be a bigger issue in the UK than some other countries where they sell, here we are a tiny island with a high population and all that waste has to go in holes in the ground. They make as many products as they can solid so that they can just go in a thin paper bag, which can be recycled and is made from recycled paper. The majority of the rest of their products go in tough, good quality black pots. These pots can be taken back and five returned pots gets you a free face mask. So this is a company that really, really tries. A company that shows the chain stores that you can reduce waste if you are creative and you care.

The effect of having all those toiletries semi-naked though, is that you can smell them all. There is nothing stopping the smell getting out. Imagine a chain store with all the bottles of perfume open? Now someone with perfume sprayed on too strong will make me sneeze.... Lush never does. You take home one tiny piece of soap and the smell isn't overwhelming.....

So yes, I love Lush. Maybe they do not go far enough in all areas for some fanatics out there. Maybe they do not tick the important boxes for some people, but they tick mine. Having a skin condition like mine where I have deformed sweat glands means that the wrong products block my skin up or coat it and then I get infected pores. Lush helps me and I love it. Do I need to say any more?