Wild things

This wild and wooly day happened to coincide with a fairly long-standing arrangement to visit Edinburgh, so having chipped the ice from the windscreen this morning we set off in the sunshine across the calm Firth of Clyde to do just that. The journey took us just over two hours, door to door, and we arrived in time for coffee. Yeah, yeah - we'd heard the weather forecast; we knew it wouldn't last ...

We leave Newhaven as the wind begins to drive rain in our faces. We've enjoyed a lovely lunch, hugged our grandchildren, heard the new drum kit. It's 3.30pm and we reckon we'd better head for home. We are not even past the city boundary when we learn that Western Ferries have gone off - Cal Mac don't seem to have been running since mid-morning. The traffic is already nose to tail as we edge out onto the M8 and towards Glasgow.

In the four mile traffic jam before the Kingston Bridge we decide we're driving home over the Rest and Be Thankful, via the Erskine Bridge because we've ended up in the wrong lane to go along Great Western Road. By now, the motorway is flooded in the low-lying bits, and great gouts of water fly up from under wheels and crash onto our roof. Every so often a gust hits us with the force of a giant fist. We have heard the same news bulletins till we could repeat them verbatim, but we keep Radio Scotland on for the traffic updates as we whizz over the Erskine Bridge in a lull and on towards Loch Lomond. And it is as we embark on the lochside road that I realise we are listening to Get it On. Now, I have only just clocked this programme, thanks to Ewan, and it strikes me it might while away the drive if we make a request. I entrust this task to my pal Di, in the back seat with her iPhone. Ask for "I remember you", I instruct - they're looking for songs that should never be covered, and it's sure to come into that category.

And so it is, best beloved, that forty minutes later, after we have braved the dark battering of the Rest and the long run down Glen Croe, as we hurtle through Strachur, we hear a message for "Di and Chris, driving home" and find ourselves singing along with Frank Ifield at the top of our voices. What fun. The miles have sped by and we're as jolly as a school trip on speed. We don't even care that it's taken us four and a half hours to get home.

Pity Mr B (driving) has to spoil it all. He announces that he feels like the coach driver - on a Saga outing.

Ah well.