One Lock Short Of The Full Adventure

Today, I went on a wee recce to find out what sort of adventure I didn’t have last night.  Para Clara is 50 tomorrow and Running Girl thought to take her away from the hustle and bustle of town life – especially as she was spending the night before driving around that town in her ambulance.  This would be just the tonic.  When Running Girl had been in need of escape we’d gone to a cave on the west coast in mid-February 2020 before lockdown had appeared on our horizons.

This was the perfect spa break for our Lochaber Girl, but something a little more comfortable seemed in order for Para Clara: a bothy 2 miles into a deserted glen with no electricity or running water but the promise of a fire if we took enough dry wood in with us.

However Running girl caught the lurgy, abandoned her running shoes and donned her pyjamas - during daylight hours. This generally indicates that all hopes and dreams will be suspended until she gets her joggers back on. I’m not sure how a sleepy paramedic just off the night shift felt about this but sad as I was for my sneezy pal, I was looking forward to a snug night in my own bed because I am a cowardly weasel.

In order to find out what I had missed I had to establish which bothy had been planned. I knew roughly the area so consulted The Bothy Bible, cross referenced their directions with the Ordnance Survey map, memorised the directions after confirming with my husband that this was the likely bothy, left the map at home and then proceeded to walk 2 miles up the wrong glen to where there was no bothy - only a mast. I pondered the option of traipsing over a bog and a hill in the rough direction of what might be the right glen but took the safer option of walking back down to the main road and taking the next available 2 mile trek up a glen.

The wrong glen

The wrong view

At the next glen option I met a family of 3 packing gear into their car. They confirmed they had slept the last 2 nights in the bothy. 3 men had left ahead of them this morning and 2 more were up a hill just now and staying another night. The family looked very relieved that 3 extra women hadn’t turned up with their smelly wet dog to swell the numbers to 11. It’s a traditional But and Ben which is 2 small rooms and nothing more. The Broons were always leaving their Dundee tenement behind in Glebe Street and heading to the But and Ben in the glens. There was 11 of THEM if they took Granpaw with them. Where on earth did they all sleep?

Not quite the solitude of a west coast cave. Whilst the cave is only a 40 minute walk in, it’s a little precarious in places. The fact we had to haul Running Girl out of a bog in which she might otherwise have perished if we hadn’t been there to save her highlights this. The bog looked innocent enough until one leg shot directly into a hole stopping only at her groin, leaving her other leg demonstrating good posture for a hurdler and therefore holding her out of the bog. Para Clara and I had engaged our core muscles in stifling hysterical laughter and didn’t want to end up where SHE was so it took a while to calm down and disengage her from the bog.

The walk into the bothy, however, is a beautiful pine clad avenue with effervescent green forest on one side and a fantastic fast moving river on the other.

Which is why it is a busy bothy. Especially at holiday time.

As I had only anticipated a 4 mile round trip, I hadn’t taken a snack with me. By the time I got to the bothy it was lunchtime and I was a bit peckish.

I hoped the bothy might still be warm after all the folk staying in it last night and the fact that the men were coming back later. I imagined 3 bowls or porridge, some comfy seats and cosy beds awaiting.

I could see from my reflection that I was one lock short of an ancient Goldilocks (on account of the unfortunate incident with the dog clippers) but with Sleepy and Sneezy out the picture I was the only one left to keep the Fairy Tale alive.

I sheepishly knocked on the door before lifting the latch and creaking the door open. No porridge, a few comfy chairs, a fire that still had a glow and 2 sleeping bags resting on very thin sleeping mats on the floor.

I didn’t crank open a tin of their food, nor sneak a snooze in their sleeping bags. I just added a few pieces of coal and a couple of bits of wood to the fire in the hope that it might still be glowing when they got off the hill.

Get well soon Running Girl and Happy Birthday Para Clara. I enjoyed the anticipation and I did enjoy the recce. I await your instructions once the jammies are off.