We had the best holiday ever in Scotland. It only rained for one day, and the rest of the time it was freezing but dry, and even sunny sometimes, so we bundled up and went pony trekking and cycling, and feeding lambs at the farm of the man who owns the cottages.
I ate haggis – which is a bit like a big round white pudding – and oatcakes, which I wasn’t mad about, and homemade fudge that was so delicious I ate far too much and felt sick for about three hours afterwards.
I wanted to try a deep-fried Mars bar, because a girl at school said she had one in Scotland, but we couldn’t find them anywhere. Just as well, probably.
My bedroom was tiny. It had a slanted ceiling so low that I could touch every part of it, and a little window just beside my bed. There was a really hairy donkey next door which heehawed at me over a stone wall every morning. I think he thought he was a rooster. I bought a disposable camera in the airport and took loads of photos of everything to show Chloe, including the donkey.
I’m seriously thinking about moving to Scotland when I grow up. I’m not sure about the accent though – it’s a bit hard to understand. And they have funny words for things, like ‘bairn’ for child and ‘oatmeal’ for porridge (which I didn’t have to eat, thank God) and one night Dad drank some whiskey called Sheep Dip, which I would have thought was the worst possible name for any kind of drink.
Nobody said ‘hoots mon’ at all, which was a bit disappointing. I suppose it’s like us saying ‘top of the morning’.
I missed Chloe’s birthday – it was on while I was away – so I brought her back a wine and green tartan scarf. She’s coming over on Saturday and we’re going to try baking the lemon cake Marjorie makes. Dad says he’s going into hiding, which he thinks is very funny. Poor Dad.
And I have to say that Marjorie was good fun really, not a bit like someone who was practising to be a stepmother. She took no notice of whether I brushed my teeth at bedtime, or how long I spent in the shower, and she didn’t worry about my eating enough fruit or fresh vegetables – all the stuff Mam would be thinking about.
Marjorie was more like a big sister, or an aunt, which was just fine by me.
And they didn’t share a bedroom. Dad slept on the couch that pulled out into a double bed in the sitting room, and Marjorie and I had the two bedrooms, so everything worked out perfectly in the end. Funny how you can worry about something that turns out to be nothing. I’m never going to worry again about things that haven’t happened, only about things that have.
Which means that I’m not going to worry about whether I get to San Francisco in the summer or not. I’m not going to worry that Mam hasn’t mentioned it since she got back.
After all, summer is still a long, long way away.
By the way, Chris is in another show at school. This time they’re doing Camelot, and he’s the knight Lancelot, who I always preferred to King Arthur. He says Bumble is playing a knight too, and he even has some lines on his own, which is nice.
It’ll be on just before Easter. Chloe and I will go to see them, of course. And maybe Ruth would like to come with us – I’ll ask her.
Wonder if Bumble’s still going out with Catherine. I suppose she’ll be in the show too. She’s probably planning to be a movie star when she leaves school. She certainly has the brains for it, ha ha.