Frugal fun: things you can do with an old mouse mat…

Having fun up a hill!

Right. I’m fed up of this now – this dismal miserable credit crunch, downturn, depression business. Every time I listen to the news some po-faced pundit is droning on about how much worse things are going to get. Denial is apparently no longer an option. 

Most of this water at some point flowed over us on the hill

So it seems we’re going to have to get creative with our parsimony, festive with our frugality. Every penny will have to count and each object in our homes must earn its keep or find itself re-purposed. 


And I’ll start with the humble mouse mat. Mostly if you’ve got those mouses (mice?) without a ball you don’t actually need one. But even if you do I’ll bet you’ve got at least one spare hanging around. 


Let’s get these mats out and give them a new lease of life…


I’ll start by proposing them as a hill walker’s lunch-time sitting mat. A couple of days ago perched on a beweathered Scottish hillside (Ptarmigan Hill, if you’re interested) with my friend Fionaoutdoors  as the cold sneaked upwards I remembered that I had intended to bring a mousemat for added comfort. (OK, not added comfort, just some shred of comfort.)


My step-mother who is a keen walker introduced me to the notion as she whipped hers out on the Aonach Eagach ridge before we unwrapped the cheese and pickles. As places like that aren’t littered with comfy, dry, warm places to park one’s backside, it’s a brilliant idea. 


Discussing the issue with Fiona, she revealed that her spare mousemat gets used in her bathroom to keep toothbrushes from dribbling nasty pasty mess onto the windowsill. Clever and useful – a toothbrush mat.


I’ve also seen them used as wobbly leg fixers for furniture and, cut into shape, as replacement insoles for wellies.


So what else can you do with an old mousemat? And do you have any other new functions for what others might refer to as junk? 


It’s time to have fun with frugal…



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