Great Mountaineering Disasters Of Our Time - # 375

Stac Pollaidh, the car-park. Intent on ending the perfect day in Assynt with an evening of scrambling across the sandstone pinnacles of Scotland's most photogenic mountain, I put on my boots and bent down to tie the laces. That was the moment at which my lumbar vertebrae decided that I might think I was going scrambling but they had other plans. Pop! The pain was excruciating and made standing up a real challenge. Twenty minutes of gentle hobbling and some stretching exercises brought things under control but meant that agile scrambling was out of the question. Then a dizzy new age blonde in a camper-van turned up and informed me that bodily injuries were a result of bad thoughts and negative feelings. Was she by any chance a physiotherapist, I enquired. Sadly no, and after some analgesic banter she headed off up the hill she claimed to be 'strangely drawn to'. Then I remembered the presence of an effective pain-killer in the boot of the car. I don't recommend drinking malt whisky from the bottle while semi-recumbent in the driver's seat at a major tourist destination. "It's for my bad back you understand," starts to sound a little unconvincing after a while.
Dear Readers, whatever you're doing I hope it's less painful and involves more vigorously expressive movements of the pelvis.