If last weekend was written in the poetic language of a travel brochure, it would go something like this: a glorious three-day adventure in the stunning setting of Loch Tay, staying in a log cabin and revelling in the freedom of the outdoors.
Oh, I can almost hear the gentle breeze blowing through the lucky white heather.
However, the reality can be summed up in slightly more succinct terms: Four women. Seven wee boys. Twenty-two wellies.
Yep, it was our biannual trip up north – just my three girlfriends, our offspring, and so much food that I wasn’t sure if we were taking our children on a weekend break or providing catering support for a regimental invasion of Perthshire.
We’d spent months planning it, every conversation punctuated with an optimistic ‘Just as long as it doesn’t rain.’ Yes, I know we live in Scotland. And, yes, I know that some people enjoy invigorating jolly japes in inclement weather. I’m not one of them. I’m a comfort-seeking, ‘shag-pile carpet and a mini-bar’ kind of chick, who would rather spend ten hours in a lift with a bag of snakes than venture out in a meteorological situation that requires a cagoule.
Previously, the weather fairy has always come through for us, but this time we were ambushed before we even got there, when our two-vehicle convoy took an unscheduled detour via Meltdown Central. Heading back to the cars after a pit stop, laden with in-transit supplies, I attempted to load the usually laid-back six-year-old Low The Younger back into his seat. ‘Don’t want to sit there,’ he huffed. Groan. It would have been easy to give in and reorganise everyone else to suit him, but I’m from the stand-your-ground school of motherhood – Lesson 1: weakness leads directly to mutiny and in no time they’ll be gorging on E-numbers and stealing the car and the credit card for a trolley dash to Toys R Us.
‘Honey, that’s your seat and that’s where you have to sit.’
He responded in a typically mature manner. ‘Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.’
Cue ten minutes of negotiation, strops and stamping of feet. Most of it mine.
‘Could be worse, it could be raining,’ I commented – just as the aforementioned fairy turned on the celestial taps and soaked us.
The only silver lining was that the downpour made the junior MP for Big Fat Huffington capitulate and climb in.
I clambered back behind the wheel, drenched but satisfied that I’d established that the mothers were in charge and the weekend boundaries would be set by those of us with height, wrinkles and adult intelligence.
I was just about to move off when my phone rang. ‘Everything okay?’ asked my pal from her vantage point across the other side of the car park.
‘Yep, sorry about that – ready to go now,’ I declared, still triumphant in the victory for common sense.
‘Then you might want to take your coffee off the roof of the car.’
My beamer illuminated the route all the way around Loch Lomond. In the rain.
We finally got there, made lunch, then played footie with the boys. In the rain. When it stopped, we dried them out and went off for a boat trip on the loch. In the rain. We got waterlogged while walking home. We cooked dinner, before playing tennis… in the rain. The next day, we spent two hours doing archery. In the rain. Then… you get the picture – it rained. For a whole weekend. And it was the kind of driving, pervasive rain that oozed into every pore. By the time we packed up I had the shivers, permanently soaked knickers and trench foot.
Would I do it again? Well, the boys had a fantastic time and the scenery was spectacular, but I’d need some cast iron guarantees before I left. Can someone let the weather fairy know that four mothers from Big Fat Huffington would like a word?