Spik aboot stressed when I should be chilled.
No childminding while my quine and her brood are awa’ on holiday. Ah, but that’s the rub. Usually when they’re on a Costa, I’m aye on the net, alert for rain or clouds. This time, I’m shocked by flame-red maps issuing horror tales of folk sizzlin’ in the Cerberus (monster-dog who guarded the gates of hell) heatwave. Well, you just have to mention “monster” and “dog” to me and I’m in full-on panic mode.
I’ve been blastin’ my quine with calls and texts about plastering the toots in sunblock, not going out during heat of the day, and gluggin’ loadsa water. Visions of them struck down with heatstroke and carted off to the nearest El Foresterhill. That said, I think they’ve been lucky in Salou, halfway up the coast of Spain, a bittie and away from the critical heat in the south.
The older I get, the worse I am in the heat. We used to lie and fry, even smothering oorsellies in cheapo cooking oil as young feels off school during the 1964 typhoid epidemic. Older and richer, but nae less daft, I’d lather on lashings of Ambre Solaire – all the better to go back to work with the perfect tan. How vain a puddick was I?
Nowadays, canna stick it, unless I’m soakin’ my hurdies in a cooling pool. But getting there with the least possible hassle seems a bit of an effort. Huge queues at the airport and passport points? Waiting for baggage reclaim? Hotel a disappointment? Mair queues for a taxi back in Aberdeen – maybe not so bad now that clever Hotel Hoppa is in place.
The only time I was tempted to book abroad was earlier this year, after watching the second series of the fabulous White Lotus telly drama, set in Sicily’s Taormina, where me and my first hubby had to cancel a holiday in 1976 after discovering I was pregnant.
Lap of luxury or fires of hell?
On screen, the hotel looks the ultimate in luxury; beach and pools clinging to the side of a cliff, decor superb, the food… I could only imagine. Also a fan of the TV series, my pal reckoned she’d adore to go as well, so I did a recce for when we both could manage, which would have been this week into next.
The cost was… aaastronomical, for two or three days, only B&B. Yet, we were so passionate aboot the place, we thought about lashin’ oot, then moving somewhere cheaper. We were absolutely on the cusp of booking until… oor Aiberdonian heidies kicked in.
No way Giuseppe would we fork oot that much. Not even if Al Pacino, as Michael Corleone, met us at the ferry. Or even Robert De Niro, talkin’ Italian.
It transpires that, if we’d booked our dream for right now, we’d have been confined to oor extortionate room, unable to even set fit on that gorgeous beach, or into the pools. Temperatures in Sicily are 46C, predicted to hit a world-record, hugely dangerous, sizzling 49C tomorrow. Now, wouldn’t we have been ower the bonnie, Sicilian moon seeing oor precious spondooliks goin’ up in planet-bustin’ flames?
We need council tax reevaluation yesterday
Never been a fan of the Scottish Nationalists, apart from the late, charismatic Winnie Ewing. Unfortunately for the party, her ilk hasn’t been seen since. Now, facing a potentially disastrous general election next year, they’ve come up with a policy to try to beat off the Labour threat.
They’re planning to force those in higher council tax bands to pay more. Those living in E, F, G and H hoosies would cough up between 7.5% and a whopping 22.5% extra. Their thinking, presumably, is that these chiels are the rich of Scotland, who can well afford to shell oot loadsamoney.
Then there’s me, who’s been unsuccessfully battling for years to get my band changed. My Summerhill bungalow is no more than a flat with two bedrooms and box room. Yet I’m classified as G – just one down from the H of a Rubislaw mansion. Utterly bizarre.
Thousands of folk like me are trapped in high bands which are totally unfair and unreasonable, because they are based on properties valued in – wait for it – 1991
Also charged the same as those around me with hugely extended, two-storey, four-bedroomed properties, apparently because the footprint of my building is the same.
My council tax is a monthly £282, that’s with the 25% reduction for single occupancy, otherwise it would be £352, or £413 with the Nats. Thousands of folk like me are trapped in high bands which are totally unfair and unreasonable, because they are based on properties valued in – wait for it – 1991.
Scotland desperately needs a major revaluation of all its houses to make the system fairer. Politicians and councillors have known it for years, but they’ve resisted because the cowards fear the backlash of millions having to pay more. It’s a national scandal.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press & Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970
