Moonwalker - Adventures of a Midnight Mountaineer

IT'S nearly that time of year again when we celebrate the beheading of a 3rd Century Roman priest by spending fortunes on over-priced flowers and chocolates in a desperate bid to convince someone of our love.

The true passion of Valentine's Day is, of course, pound signs. The starting point for this day of recrimination is the legend that St Valentine signed a letter 'from your Valentine' to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and healed from blindness. 

What we conveniently ignore is that St Valentine was one of the first great multi-taskers, being the patron saint of epileptics, lovers and beekeepers. Society has chosen to remember him for love but had it tipped another way, we could all have been sending each other bees every year.

As an antidote to this great commercial love-in, I have decided to focus on passion of a different kind – the ones we have for the outdoors. But I'm not going all soppy with age; this is about the more bizarre and sometimes darker nature of passion. For those disappointed that the film Kinky Boots wasn't a hillwalking documentary, this should be right up your bealach.

There's no better feeling than pulling the boots off after a long, hard day on the hills and treating your feet to a hot soak. No surprise then that foot fetishes feature high on the list of dubious pleasures. Tickling is an age-old stimulant: this was said to be a particular favourite of members of the Russian aristocracy, some of whom employed full-time foot ticklers. They also had to be able to tell dirty jokes and sing raunchy songs. Before you consider this as a new career, it should be pointed out that eunuchs were preferred.

Foot licking may sound like a good idea on paper, but then the disgraced former Tory MP David Mellor springs to mind and the moment is lost. Crumbling food between the toes is believed to add to the pleasure, but really, who wants to waste a few digestives on a pair of feet that have been sweating their way up and down a few thousand metres?

Those suffering from cold feet can always spice things up with a powder mix of cayenne and ginger sprinkled into a pair of socks: the cayenne warms the muscles, the ginger relaxes them. The effect can last for hours. The downside – and there's always a downside – is that the mix will stain the socks beyond salvation. And you will instantly regret the decision to try this out if you have any cuts on your feet.

Living in Scotland, I suppose the idea of psychrotentiginosity, the arousal of being cold, shouldn't be too outlandish. I only need to think back to the days of football fans travelling long distances for matches in minus zero temperatures wearing short-sleeved replica tops to reckon that this must have been some kind of turn-on.

When a friend and I were relating our tale of a narrow escape in a white-out during a wild day on Ben Challum, a female colleague asked us if we had been 'excited' by the near-death experience. She seemed disappointed that we were not the slightest bit aroused by the thought of plummeting through a cornice or that of a wind-battered struggle in waist-deep snow in temperatures somewhere south of minus 20.

I shall be more prudent in future when using the term ants in your pants after reading about formicophilia. That's the term for the feeling of arousal by having ants or other insects crawling over your body. I suggest anyone needing a fast-acting remedy for this ailment should try midges.

There are even folk said to enjoy urtication – the art of evoking stimulation of the skin by putting stinging nettles in their underwear. This has roots in the medical practice of trying to return sensation to paralysed limbs. A day spent with stinging nettles in your pants would likely paralyse more than just your limbs. There are days when chafing is bad enough.

My great love for mountains started with Buachaille Etive Mor and it holds a special place in my heart for many reasons. So much so, I once joked to a friend, that if only I had been about 3,352 feet taller, I may have proposed. I admit the romance kind of soured with the more recent use of metric measurements.

In a similar vein, I have a great fondness for my arboreal namesake, the Rannoch Rowan, that lone tree growing out of a huge boulder on Rannoch Moor. It is a familiar and comforting presence, and I'm always sure to wave when I pass. It feels eternal, romantic, yet I am perfectly happy to remain a virtual treehugger.

In some ancient religions trees were symbols of fertility. In their fervour, some men suffered from dendrophilia – arousal by trees – which saw them going a little further than mere hugging. Indulging in this particular treesome didn't seem to carry any great shame or stigma, unless it happened to be carried out on a holy day. Those who transgressed suffered the unkindest cut of all as a punishment – they had to watch their lover being hacked down.

Happy Valentine's day, everyone.