by Towser » Sat Jun 22, 2013 6:35 pm
Corbetts included on this walk: Aonach Shasuinn
Date walked: 22/06/2010
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This seems hard to believe... but it is true and it makes a good tale later over a pint.
One beautiful day in Glen Affric, as we were setting off for Aonach Shasuinn (888m), I accidentally dropped my boot bag on the ground and out fell boots … gaiters … cat food (lots of it), and … mouse droppings! Our mouths gaped! Mouse droppings we could work out, but cat food? After giving the boots a good knock and clean out, I put them on and we set off up the hill. I mulled over how a stray mouse must have decided to set up a “dez rez” in my boot with food fit for a king – Hills (very expensive) cat food which he must have been nicking from the cat’s dish. I pictured a little mouse, (busy for many days judging by the amount of cat food in the boot!) scurrying back and fore between the cat’s dish and his new home. (Must remember not to keep boots in the porch, and to check the other boots when I get home).
We eventually arrived at the summit cairn. After all the interest back at the car, I had forgotten to put on my gaiters, so my ankles were sore and scratched from the bracken on my sock. I removed my boots and started to pick the bracken off (horrible job), only to discover blood on the toe of my sock. Well, at least I had my first aid kit with me. I took off my sock but found no blood on my skin, no cut, no bruising – how strange! I looked in the boot to see if there was an offending stone in the toe – nothing. Boot empty!
Now really puzzled, and looking for a solution to this mystery, I removed the footbed - horror of horrors – to find a very flat and a very dead mouse between the footbed and the sole of the boot. He was, you could say, “dead flat”, and not in a position to benefit from my first aid kit. I had to get my husband to deal with “it” – I couldn’t even look! It’s little creatures like this that I rescue from the cat: now I had dealt the final blow.
To answer your question: no, I didn’t feel anything at all during my walk up the hill – no lumps, no bumps, no nothing. My boot was just as comfortable as always: oh no!
I realised it must have been blood from the mouse on my sock!!! “Aaargh”. But I had to put that sock back on to go down the hill – with the mouse blood on it! No option as I didn’t have a spare pair of socks.
It was a superb day, but I just can't get that wee mouse out of my head and that is why in my log book, Aonach Shasuinn is now also called “the hill of the mouse”.
