Little Lady Gaga

My eldest daughter celebrated her 7th birthday this week on the island of Islay.   A place which my father memorably described at our wedding as ‘that beautiful island where I met her mother, married her mother and where our daughter was conceived’  Not the sort of information I was expecting to hear in his wedding speech but one which my husband could possibly include in his when / if our younger daughter ever gets married.  Our entire family makes an annual pilgrimage to Islay at the same time every year so the oldest has spent every birthday having a barbecue at a beautiful isolated cottage at the head of 7 miles of desolate beach.  With cousins on Islay and other friends and family shipped in from New York, London and Edinburgh her birthday has become an annual hoolie though this year instead of the haunting sounds of gaelic singing playing in the background the party was dominated by Lady Gaga and our daughter even persuaded her octogenarian grandmother to show us her poker face.

Sleep is even more cockeyed than usual when we’re on holiday.  A combination of really late nights out by the fire on the beach and early nights when I snuggle up with them.  On her birthday, which was one of the really late nights, I made the rash decision to allow her to sleep with me and mistook the groaning at 3am for a nightmare rather than the rumblings of a child who was about to hurl up all the cake, iron bru, crisps and other rubbish she had hoovered up during the day.  As I held her in my arms I was confronted by the full force of the projectile vomit. Not the best end to a wonderful birthday but it brought us closer together when after bathing her and shoving the sheets in the washing machine we were forced into confines of her single bed.  Thankfully even when it’s not sunny the wind in the Western Isles can dry sheets in a matter of minutes though the weather changes are so swift that the wind can also bring in a downpour.  I was therefore taking something of a risk when I left them on the line while we went for a pony trek on the other side of the island.  We stood on the beach watching the driving rain approaching, gathering up kids and clothes as we ran for the cars and spent the 40 minute drive back gently steaming.  Meanwhile on the other side of the island our own idyllic spot was completely rain free and the sheets were completely dry ready to go back on the bed.  Unfortunately I didn’t have the foresight to put them on before going out for dinner so when we stumbled back across the beach in the pitch dark shortly before midnight I was again asleep beside the kids before my husband had got the duvet on.