All Good

Well our holiday got 'interesting' before it even started. On the morning we were due to leave, I was awoken by the sound of retching, as MD vomited in his bed. A habit he continued for most of the holiday. The day he took off, Doggo stepped in, they really are such a team.

So I got up, ushered him outside and cleaned up the mess, only for him to return a few minutes later with some dung hanging decoratively from one ear. Just like one of those dangly earrings. So both he and his bed got early morning baths. I think L slept through the whole thing.

Then as I loaded up the car, I complete the 'bad luck comes in threes' thing by kicking over a bottle of wine. Now it was MD's turn to offer to clean things up but I declined his helpful offer. Red wine and broken glass would I'm sure simply bring on more vomiting.

We dispatch Daughter to school for her ski trip, who were, as ever, running late and try to wave goodbye to Son, but he's already written us out of his life for the week and returned to his room. So we left them all to it and hit the M6.

Seven and a half hours later (which isn't bad), we are driving up and down the evil A82 (it's a hellishly fast road) in Glencoe looking for the concealed entrance to the track that leads to the romantically secluded cottage we have booked. Eventually, after dicing with the traffic, we find it.

We stay in that first night and celebrate Valentines Day a day late with red wine and something sexy from Figleaves for L. It's so nice to be on our own for a while, I'm not sure we've ever had a cottage for just L and I before. So no Daughterly interruptions and even the dogs are too knackered to bother us much.

We walk the paws off the dogs the next day, so that on Tuesday we can do some snowblading at Nevis Range. There's snow but just like last years trip, we are a week late for the best conditions. Last week the snow was fantastic and temperatures around zero, this week it's a much warmer eight-degrees and the snow is receding fast. Conditions are rather slushy but still good enough to give us a decent ski and MD gets to venture up in his first gondola.

On Wednesday we ski the White Corries at Glencoe, where it's always icy but even there the lower slopes are very soft. It's a nicer contrast to the evil ice at the top. I assume it must be icy there even in July.

We had hoped to return to Nevis Range on the Friday but high winds shut the lifts, so more walking for the dogs. Who got a good walk every day, even when we skied. Both collies seemed wrecked by the end of the week and it'll take MD a further week to recover from it all. Scotland is good for him, not very sheepy, so he had lots of off-lead time.

Apart from a couple of nights in, our evenings were spent on the terrific Scottish ales at the Clachaig Inn. The daring walk back along the A82 and down our mile long farm track isn't too bad when you're nicely anaesthetised.

The Clachaig is the only place where you can get a pint in Glencoe and even that's a couple of miles outside the village. The Glencoe Hotel is still closed, as it was last year. The planned refurbishment has been delayed but when it happens it'll be another luxury hotel 'with leisure facilities'. The last thing the area needs is another one of them.

The Clachaig is absolutely heaving every night and making a fortune. If only I could afford to take the Glencoe Hotel on. I'm sure a Clachaig style venture, a decent bar with a few cheap rooms, that's an ode to skiing/walking/climbing etc would do a storming trade, and also cross promote the winter sports industry which most people don't even know exist. It would also give the locals somewhere to have a drink.

Daughter is with us in spirit, if not in person. She is never further away that the next text message. She keeps us informed and amused about her own holiday in the Italian Dolomites. As the week goes on, we await news of her assassination, as she seems to be top of the class skiing wise and getting smugger by the day. That is when she's not bitching about her homesick roommate who also happens to be a serial snorer.

When someone does get the better of her on skis, a teacher, she complains that they're 20 years older than she is and have been skiing since they were nippers. You can imaging what the teacher was texting back home, complaining about one of his pupils who's 20 years younger than him, been skiing since she was nipper and he only just managed to beat her. It's a similar complaint that I have when some young whippersnapper beats me in a race.

On Saturday, we drive back for a night in the Lakes, at Wasdale, which we have neglected for far too long. A night in the Wasdale Head Inn completes what has been a horrible week for the alcohol units, horribly nice.

By the time we get home, we have completed the audio book of the White Russian, so that's another impressive title to put on my reading CV.

We return home to Son, who has managed to hold the fort, not flood the bathroom, kept the heating running, sorted out the milkman and collected the dustbin off the street. There's not even a pile of pizza boxes. So 'all good' as he would say on one of his two word text messages.

He's waiting at the door with a box of chocolates to welcome us home... Well not quite but he does leave us a weeks worth of dirty plates, which is almost the same thing.