I recount what follows by way of early notice that should you meet me on my hike I may come across as something of a grumpy bastard, so I ask your indulgence…
Empathy – they say it’s a human trait and arguably unique to ourselves (notwithstanding the likely protests of my bonkers Grandmother-in-Law who would insist that Tiddles, Mu-Mu, Fu-Fu, and Doctor Putinkel all showed concern when she was ill. Those who knew her, and her cats, appreciated that what she took for cat-empathy was actually cat-excitement at the possibility of feasting on a human carcass). I mention empathy because last weekend I was once again in the Donegal hills but this time nestled in a very comfortable little house suffering no greater privation than a shortage of chocolate biscuits but I was empathising with the discomfort of my girl guide charges who for 4 days were trudging through difficult terrain. The Derryveagh mountains are beautiful but consist mostly of bare rock and dozens of loughs each one of which is surrounded by an expanse of sopping heathery turf able to support the weight of a human – provided the human has hobbit-like webbed feet or is wearing snow-shoes.
The weather turned bad on Saturday night so it was decided that empathy was all well and good but we perhaps ought to hike into the hills to check they were all right. We were pretty confident we could find them because they were carrying a satellite tracker and anyway we had Jodie the ex-mountain rescue search dog with us. That said, Jodie stared into the rain, looked up and with those expressive doggy eyes communicated a very clear message i.e. “Evolution may have put you at the top of the food chain mate, but if you push me out in that I’ll bite your fucking opposable thumb off. Intelligent design my doggy arse.”. To be honest my primary concern was not for the fate of the girls I was more concerned to retrieve my yet to be patented barbed wire fence crossing aid i.e. a split PVC pipe with gaffa-tape hinging and Velcro locking tabs! The device is used to help protect the users crotch – but only from barbed wire injury, other crotch related threats possibly of a moral nature are beyond the remit of this device. I had lent the device to the guides but as I was sharing a house with at least one colleague who went to public school I was now getting anxious about the vulnerability of my own crotch.
In the end we did find the girls, trudging over humid turf hags in relentless rain under darkening skies. As they approached us each of them appeared to possess a hazy shimmering halo. Turned out the halo was in fact their own individual swarm of midges. We offered reassurance and advice. They are nice girls so said “thank you” but in a tone which said “unless you have working insecticide, ice-cream or news of a death in my family – piss off and leave me alone”. We pissed off before the midges got wind of fresh blood. That night a single disembodied hand emerging from a zipped tent door held a saucepan over a stove and cooked pasta in orange juice – presumably because midges don’t like citrus. They endured two further days and nights of rain and clinging mists and by the end even the midges couldn’t stand the body odour… But they finished the hike, completed their research assignment and after a shower a shit and a shave (armpits, I suppose) reverted once again to the charming individuals they were before. Respect.
As a reward we spent our final Donegal night in an Irish hostel enjoying the undiluted pleasure of true Celtic hospitality – provided by the Italian warden of the hostel and her German girl-friend we ate American burgers and listened to a Croatian fiddler playing “Galway Girl”. I was able to slip away and retrieve my fence crossing aid, I was after all now sharing a room with my colleagues.
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