No, I’m joking, really…

I’ve got two Sports Days this week. First, Son (13) who was running the race of heros: the 800m. The afternoon before he’d done the race of masochists: the 1500m.

The best thing about watching my son run is that he is always delighted with his result. He is not the fastest, but he has trained like a mad thing and worked himself up from middle of the pack to Contender for the Bronze.

In both his races, he was nudged back into fourth place, but he was still grinning from ear-to-ear, delighted with his result and a new ‘PB’ time. I’m such a sports dunce, I didn’t even know that meant ‘personal best’.

When I was at school, I was rubbish at running. I remember getting so tall one year that my arms and legs were completely out of my control. I began a sprint but then lost it and fell on my face. In front of all the parents, so mortifying!

In my teens I managed to get into the high jump one year – even more mortifying because we had to take off our school skirts and jump in our blue school knickers! I blame this horror for completely putting me off so that once again, I came last.

But I do enjoy all the sporting drama from the safety of the spectator stands: the injured racer hobbling off with cramp; the girl who came third brushing tears of disappointment from her face then collapsing into Dad’s arms; some hunky high jumper showing off his grazed shoulders to gorgeous blonde; the house relay races, everyone in a frenzy of cheering; the tug-of-war and all those desperate, last moment bids for glory at the finishing line. The tragedy of being ‘pipped at the post’!

‘Pipped’? Surely ‘robbed’ would express it better?

Yes… think I feel a really good story coming on now.

My second Sports Day with Daughter (9) is tomorrow. She’s really fast. But last year she came second. This year she is absolutely determined to win. I’m trying to play it down for her. I want her to try but I don’t want her to crumble if she doesn’t quite get there. I’ve told her she’s a wonderful runner and she’s to think of herself as a gazelle, running fast, running strong and beautifully. She’s not worry about the result.

She listened carefully to all my earnest ‘it’s not the winning, it’s the taking part’ spiel, then little puzzled look on face, she asked:  ‘Mum? What’s a gazelle?’

Portlethen was a family event as I took my daughter and my Dad. Dad was giving me a lift and I’d forgotten all about his punctuality issues and the fact that the Land Rover can only go at a certain speed, so we arrived just 15 minutes before kick-off, but everyone was incredibly calm! Claudie was all dressed up and looking lovely as she worked her way steadily through the many snacks provided. Can I just say how incredibly glamorous everyone looked: sparkly pink shoes, pink tops and jazzy scarves, it was very fashion-forward. We talked lots about writing. I think they are a very keenly creative lot up there. Thank you for inviting me along!

Fort William… is a long way away! I took the train from Glasgow and it took almost four hours. However the weather was beautiful and the scenery was picture postcard Scotland. Seriously, there were stags leaping from the tracks, then posing in front of blue lochs, velvety brown mountains and Rowan trees full of berries. I was trying to work on the train, but the views were so amazing I kept getting totally distracted.

I got an unforgettably warm Highland welcome from the library and so many people came along! No wonder, there was a chocolate fountain (!) food, drinkies, two makeover ladies. We all had an absolute hoot. I have been told to spread the word, if any writer is even thinking about making the trek to FW, it is totally worth it, I promise.

For the first two weeks in July, I was on holiday. As a big birthday treat, I went to New York with my family and had a truly brilliant time. It was hot, it was hectic, it was very exciting.

We did lots of touristy things, of course: Statue of Liberty check, Empire State Building, check, Natural history Museum, the Met, MoMA, the Bronx Zoo, the Central Library… all fantastic. All totally worth visiting.

Our apartment was weirdly Glasgow-ish: a Victorian sitting room, a little bit brown and shabby-chic, turned into a one-bedroom plus kitchenette kind of thing. It was on 16^th street between 5^th and 6^th and I can’t recommend that slice of town enough. We were right beside 5th Avenue… within spitting distance of Anthropologie, Coach, Banana Republic, J Crew (eek, all shopping accidents waiting to happen) Also the unbelievable farmer’s market in Union square.

When we weren’t eating out, we cooked in  – which Manhattanites don’t –  maybe because cooking attracted the biggest, brownest insect I’ve ever seen. Too big to be a roach, apparently he was a water beetle.

Yes, there were some shopping adventures: I bought my son button-down shirts and his first tie in the slightly fusty, wood-panelled Brooks Brothers (thus fulfilling a Woody Allen inspired fantasy… )

I took Claudie to American Girl Place where our jaws dropped. Not only could you buy a dolly to look like you, clothes and every dolly accessory ever invented (dolly kayak for instance), there was even a dolly hair salon where real, live stylists plaited your dolly’s hair.

I mainly bought shoes, none expensive and all quite devastatingly practical… OK apart from the Park Avenue Princess pumps in furry leopard skin with patent leather trim!

We spent lots of time hanging with the nannies and ‘Hudson Juniors’ in the Central Park playgrounds. Boating on the pond was the best and there were turtles. I found that surprising… what do they do with them in the winter? Fly them to Florida?

I turned 40 (!) and I got a truly spectacular cake. We went out and ate pizzas, played in the Washington Square fountain, walked home up Fifth Avenue admiring the lights on the Empire State building. I counted my many blessings, especially the three I was with, and thought 40 felt pretty good actually.

In the morning, the wind was bitingly cold and we stood in the grey water forlornly casting, casting and casting again. By the way, casting – flicking the line into the water and pulling it back – is really hard work and I’d thought we’d just be standing about holding our rods in the water… but I still got so cold that when I embedded a fish hook in my finger, I didn’t even notice.

We broke early for lunch, huddled round an Aga and got some feeling back in our toes, before setting off out again.

This time, the sun broke through the clouds, light danced on the blue water and suddenly every view around us looked stunning. Even the prospect of going home without any fish didn’t seem bad, because we’d had such a great day outdoors.

Then, just as we were about to pack up, Claudie’s line began to twitch! With some help, she reeled her little trout in and didn’t have any qualms about bashing his head and taking him home in a plastic bag for breakfast. Poor Sam just about died of envy!

And just to prove what I was writing about last time (Claudie’s spooky sense of style), her fishing outfit which she chose then laid out on her bed for me to pack included co-ordinating pants and a leather hat which she got from the dressing up box. She wore these all day along with her sunglasses, making her the coolest chic on the loch. Although Sam’s slightly serial killer get up of combat jacket, aviator shades and baseball hat came a very close second.

All I can say about myself is that duvet coat with a life jacket? Well, it’s never going to be a good combo now, is it?

But the Easter service was even worse. The school’s headmistress has been off for months with an unspecified illness and when she was welcomed to the podium by the stand-in headteacher, to everyone’s distress, she was wearing a headscarf.

She told us how much she’d been missing the children and how the wonderful doctors were making her better. But every parent was looking at the headscarf and thinking: this is very bad news.

Her speech made me cry, but then the choir’s angelic The Lord Bless You And Keep You just about finished me off. I’d have come with a box of mansized if I’d been warned.

Still, I wasn’t in quite as much of a state as when my daughter’s nursery was closing down. The final concert of the year was emotionally-charged enough, what with tearful staff hugging each other at every opportunity, but then the children sang Abba’s Mamma Mia.

Now just who thought that was a good idea?!! A chorus of gorgeous little three and four year olds singing: ‘Mamma Mia, did you ever know, my, my, just how much I missed you… oooooh I’ve been broken-hearted, ooooh since the day we parted…’

Heads were turning while I tried to subdue myhowls. Believe me, I’d been feeling quiteconflicted enough about putting my three year old into daycare without that!

April is when Claudie has her birthday. We like a homemade cake in this household, preferably with themed decorations. This year’s request was for a grassy cake with cows!