“CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN, FORGE EVERY STREAM”

We’re off on holiday tomorrow to the children’s least favourite destination. In order to prevent a sullen band of bolshy, argumentative kids the Father of the Children and I need to acquire major cajoling skills and transform ourselves into Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.

I can see the Father of the Children getting into Bert’s character quite easily, hopping about shouting “schtep in time’ in a phoney cockney accent, but I’m not so comfortable in my role. Do I chose the charming and loving Maria or the no-nonsense but enigmatic Mary? My instinct is neither: I want to bellow at the moaning children that they are blooming lucky to be going on holiday at all, and they should shut up and get on with it.

The problem, you see, is that we are going to Scotland. Can you hear the booing and the hissing at the very mention of the place? We go to Scotland a lot. Because, and it’s important that they understand this, it is beautiful, inspiring, and where we go, almost completely devoid of people. Also, it’s a place that the Father of the Children and I both love going to in equal measure – a rare thing in a marriage. So, we’ll stuff the car with every item of fleecy and waterproof gear we can lay our hands on, avoid listening to the weather forecast so that we can remain optimistic and head north.

The strange thing is that they do love it when they get there. It’s the getting there that is the problem. The journey is hell; an epic of driving that lasts over 10 hours and ends in three hours on a ferry. Furthermore, there is nothing the children hate more than the prospect of having to be hearty. They don’t want to make a fire on the beach in the drizzle, or go for a walk in a howling wind. The thought of paddling in a frozen sea is not a happy one. They think that holidays should be taken somewhere warm, with a swimming pool, where everyone looks different and there is foreign money. Sadly, they were born into the wrong family.

So, this is where Bert and Mary come in, the Red Coats of the Western Isles. We will whoop our way across chilly beaches drawing pictures in the sand, spend hours inside, away from the rain, painting pebbles jolly colours. Huddle in the dunes eating Tunnocks Wafer Biscuits, make up bird spotting competitions, give 10p to anybody who sees a seal and gather a shell collection to rival the Natural History Museum’s. Finally, after a few days, the children begin to remember how to have a good time on their own and really believe there is nowhere better. This means that Bert and Mary can flake out - exhausted, drink whisky on the beach, for warming purposes only you understand, and watch the children playing in the good old-fashioned way. Ahh Scotland, there’s nowhere like it!

Life in the Slow Lane is written by Clare Kent. She has three children - Max is nearly eleven, Flo is nearly eight and Bobby is six and a half - and lives in Wiltshire.

NEXT INSTALMENT: WEDNESDAY 14 AUGUST