Mum's the Word - it's Christmas so celebrate in a ho ho hot tub

Youngest Child knows how to keep warm in the snow

Glen Coe in the snow. Picture: Adobe

It’s sleeting outside and I’m trying to work out which coat is the warmest for putting the bins out when Youngest phones me in a sweat.

“They don’t have any bikinis!”

She’s in a shop, out of town, and can’t understand why swimwear is not a priority.

“No, we don’t sell many in December,” I can hear a sales assistant explaining patiently in a much more sympathetic tone that I would be able to adopt. I would just have asked her to leave, take her bikinis-all-year-round custom elsewhere.

“Just wear your pants,” I tell her, “that’s what the PE teacher made us do if we’d forgotten our swimming stuff and it never did us any harm.”

“OMG, back in the days when children were allowed to be hit,” she says, “and it did a lot of harm. We can see the results. So anyways, I need a bikini and don’t have time to come home to get any of mine.”

She’s en route to her night away and I ignore the bikini/smacking issue because I’m more concerned to find out where she’s going. I like to keep track of my offspring.

“It’s Ross something I think,” she says. “Oh! Panic over, it’s OK. I’ve found a pink crochet one on a sale rack.”

“I’ve stopped panicking.” I say. “Wester Ross? For one night. Can’t be.”

“Something like that. Somewhere in Scotland anyway. North-ish. I’ll tell you when I get there.”

Her favourite subject was not geography and her modus operandi is to google a place when she arrives - which was interesting this summer when we went to Beirut - turned out she’d mixed it up with Barcelona, or possibly Benidorm - well, they’re all on the Mediterranean. This is why I have a map on the kitchen wall but obviously I’m the only one who pays it any attention. Clearly I need to put one up of Scotland too.

“It’s a place called Glen Coe!” she texts next day. “I’m in Glen Coe. It’s amazing. And it’s snowing!”

“Yay! But you should have taken walking boots, never mind a bikini. Glen Coe’s great for walking. I remember climbing…”

“I’m in a hot tub on the decking watching the snow falling. Why would I need walking boots? Anyway, you can borrow my bikini next time you go walking in Glencoe.”

“Thank you. I will.”

I want Youngest Child’s life.