Sledging till your socks were soaked through and your cheeks were bitten red, coming in to the warmth of the fire, Supermarket Sweep, piles of buttery toast and mugs of Cadbury’s hot chocolate… It was the best, until the snow days turned to weeks and you never wanted to see Dale Winton again.
Those blue wrappers are still pure nostalgia for you. You even get pangs for Turkey Twizzlers. Sometimes.
Standing up on stage in the village hall, aged 10, and doing a Skye Boat Song solo could not have been more cringe.
So much drama for an overstuffed sausage! You loved it, even if you hated haggis.
Stovies accompanied by beetroot, oatcakes, and cold glass after cold glass of milk. You did try to go vegan once, but how could you say goodbye to your (delicious) roots?
Fine piece after fine piece — Tunnock’s teacakes, millionaire’s shortbread, queen cakes, buttered slices of fruit loaf — all washed down with hot tea… Oh min!
Maybe a bit of Stereophonics or Manic Street Preachers was thrown in there for some variety, but really, it was ALL about Oasis.
And you really, really wish you didn’t.
Not classy. Class.
You had to write “fae.” Always.
Until that came to an end, and double bills of Dawson’s Creek on T4 saw you through till midday.
Darius! Cleopatra! Hear’Say!
Because there was, and will never be, a greater delight than walking country lanes gorging on wild raspberries and brambles in the sun.
Bowlfuls of Mackie’s ice cream and strawberries might have something to do with that.
Somehow even that dish took a double period to make.
Huddled under bridges, crammed into back alleys… if it smelled of urine, the Lammie Bammies would be OOT. If you were into that sort of thing, you probably couldn’t afford your own, so you’d resort to begging the older lads for leavings. Or if you were having a really bad day, you weren’t above pleading in your smallest voice, “See’s the beef?” Yep, you willingly smoked other people’s soggy yellow cigarette butts. It was probably the same at Gwyneth Paltrow’s high school in Santa Monica, though, right?
You were in the biggest club in Scotland. There were babes from other schools. If you got lucky, you might even get a trap from one of those babes from other schools. Could life get any better? Never.
Because that creamy blue Maybelline eyeshadow you gunked on your lids straight from the tube didn’t come cheap! Okay, it did, but it felt expensive when you’d already spent most of your money clubbing together with your pals for a few orange WKDs on Friday night. That eyeshadow was a wonder of a thing though — caking and crusting over 13 year-old eyelids like luminescent trails of incredible blue slime. Once you’d ironed your hair straight (with an actual iron) and popped on your Adidas shell toes and biggest GAP hoodie, a pale pink slick of Bourjois Effet 3D lipgloss and a spritz of Impulse was all you then needed to feel like the next Britney Spears.
And there was only one thing better than Snake. And that was Snake II. Or maybe MSN Messenger.
You loved it all — the St. Nicholas Centre because you could read the magazines for free in WHSmith, the Trinity Centre because HMV, and right next door, Virgin Megastore. But the Bon Accord Centre food court had the best pizza meal deal around, so it was the best.
Or were they?
Five minutes later, you came out trembling having been repeatedly asked by hard-faced girls what you were looking at and if you were “starting.”
In fact, you’d have started them at midnight if you could, because in the words of that great Scot, Mel Gibson, “FREEEEEEDOM!”
No more calling mum and dad for lifts from village hall parties at 2am, ever! No wonder they forked out for your lessons.
Castles, tearooms, distilleries… at some point you probably yearned for wider horizons. And then you’d go to the beach, the sand slipping beneath your feet and marram flicking your knees as you tumbled down the dunes to the edge of the roaring North Sea. Just you, birds, sky, and water — it made you realise that, actually, you’re from a pretty incredible part of the world after all. 