I don't know about you but I am just writhing in my chair in anticipation of the announcement of the 2007 Airport of the Year Award. Will Singapore's Changi run away with it again, or is there room in our hearts for a newcomer?

I know it's too late to nominate but I believe the gong should go to the teeny tiny gem that is Sumburgh Airport, the bustling hub of the Shetland Isles.

It may lack the razzle dazzle of your Heathrows or LAXes with its crumbling high school looks and absence of restaurants, Duty Free or vibrating massage chairs, but Sumburgh would charm the pants off the most hardened traveller.

- Instead of the usual fast food monoliths, Sumburgh has a cosy cafeteria with a wholesome K-Mart style, with fresh scones and traybakes made by the local hotel. There's even a real live bloke frying up eggs and bacon and black pudding, ready to plop onto a fat bread roll for your dining pleasure.

- The Hotel makes sandwiches for the outbound flights too; so going home feels like a jolly picnic. No dodgy pretzels here!

- The normal procedure for returning a hire car involves a surly bastard inspecting your vehicle with a magnifying glass and questioning every scratch. But at Sumburgh Airport there's no one waiting - there's just a little slot in the office window for you to chuck the keys into.

- Old red tractors at work!

- Instead of warnings about illegal parking or unattended luggage, the only announcement we heard over the airport PA was, "Attention ladies and gentleman, if you are the owner of a wee powder blue Nissan Micra, you've left your lights on!"

I think I'm fitted with 12-month goldfish memory when it comes to the Highlands. When the days get long and our neighbours turn an alarming shade of terracotta, once more my thoughts turn to soaring mountains, campfires and snuggly sleeping bags. Twelve months is long enough to think that camping is a great idea. Twelve months is long enough to erase the memory of the most evil of all insects - the Scottish midge.

On Friday night we packed up the tent and the veggie sausages and headed back to Glen Etive. The weather forecast was good, with no chance of our campsite being turned into an island by torrential rain like last year. The sun was shining when we arrived and chose an extremely stunning spot.

Miraculously we managed to get the tent up before the midges arrived in a black cloud. I'd stuuupidly left my trusty Avon Skin-So-Soft repellent at home, but I thought I'd be okay with my gloves, long sleeves and had my jeans tucked into my socks. Best of all we both had these sexy new midge hats. Sure we looked like beekeepers in mourning, and we could barely see each other or the gorgeous scenery. But at least the bugs couldn't crawl up our nostrils or eat our faces.

Yet the midges were determined to ruin any enjoyment of our night. I'd never seen such a relentless swarm. You may be thinking, how can something so small cause such angst? I am telling you, they are truly the most maddening creatures on earth. We tried going for a walk, but they just followed. I tried to read a book, but the pages were soon smudged with tiny corpses. We tried to make tea, but as soon as we poured it they kamikazied into the cups. We fished them out, but whenever I dared venture from beneath my mesh hat to take a sip, they'd swoop down on my hands. I could feel them dive under the gloves to gnaw on my wrists.

You can see/hear the carnage for yourself in this stunning video that I made. Warning: video contains the word BASTARDS.

In the end insanity forced us into the tent. We zipped the door then spent five minutes swearing and slapping at all the midges that followed us, smearing them over the tent walls and over each other while screaming, "I WILL NEVER CAMP AGAIN!"

Despite all my protection, the little bastards managed to get me. Big time. Even worse than last year. My face may have been spared, but they squeezed past my socks and chomped their way around my ankles. And in my desperate scramble to get into the tent, my top must have got seperated from my jeans, so the midges nibbled a neat row all the way across my back. I am wearing a MIDGE BELT, people.

It's made worse by my severe reaction. Some people get tiny red dots that disappears after a few hours, but I get giant, red, swollen, festering insanely itchy sores the size of dimes. Speckled on my wrists. Tattooed right around each ankle. Circumnavigating my waist. And as a very special bonus, there's three bites forming an angry red arrow right above my BUTT CRACK.

I will spare you a photograph of my rear end, but you can witness the hideousness of my right ankle here from two different (but equally repulsive) angles.

I'm so freaking itchy right now I am ready to bite my feet off. My skin feels like it's on fire. I look like a leper. I'm never going outside again. Not without a full space suit, anyway. Same time next year?

I picked up my complimentary copy of Highland Life magazine while in Shetland. Check out those prizes!

We went to the Shetland Islands and they were chock full of Shetland Ponies! It's like the joy of arriving in Australia and discovering they weren't kidding about the kangaroos and koalas.

Half pony!

This one chased us down a road.

Also, PUFFINS!

Saw this poster at the local primary school on Election Day. Nashty!

My visa arrived in the mail today. You'll never get rid of me now, Britain!

In the end there was no need for immigration lawyers or angry letters to MPs or copulation on the steps of the Home Office to prove our devotion. I simply sent them 58 new pieces of evidence. And one lovely letter of hearty endorsement from Rory.

You may ask why I didn't just send 58 pieces of evidence in the first place. But when the form requested "a minimum of 10 and ideally 20", somehow I missed the invisible sentence that followed, "and another 38 would be quite handy."

My advice to anyone planning to apply for permanent residency: start saving everything. Every bank statement, insurance policy, phone bill, Post-it note, parking ticket, Durex wrapper, milk carton, flat tyre and soggy teabag. Put it all in a big box and send it to the government. Recorded delivery, of course.

Gareth has already skipped off to see his solicitor. I personally wanted to go to Reno so we could end this charade in sunny Nevada where it all began. But now that I'm a permanent resident of Scotland I'm far too tight to fork out for airfares.

Seriously comrades, I'm happy. I love this wee country. Thank you for your kindness and tolerance during my moments of madness. You rule the school.

Headache No. 1 came from slamming my head in the car door. I'd opened the door and was sliding onto the front seat with a bag of groceries when my foot slipped. POW! The right side of my noggin smacked hard against the side of the car, which was unfortunate enough. But alas, at the same time my left hand happened to be pulling the door shut. POW! The door thwacked into the left side of the head. Just to even things up.

I've seen cartoon characters getting smashed with a pair of cymbals by their arch rivals; it looked a lot like that. Except more industrial. And because I inflicted the damage myself, it was a hoot. Gareth almost wept from laughter. And so did I, until it turned into searing tears of PAIN.

So this may have contributed to Headache No. 2 - Filling out my permanent residency application for the stinking Home Office. It's all been sent away now and I'm praying I didn't make any errors while mildly concussed. I shall find out in 4 - 12 weeks.

One question in the form intrigued me:

"Have you or any dependants included in this application ever been involved in acts of committing, preparing, financing or instigating terrorism or acts of encouraging or inducing others to commit, prepare or instigate terrorism, or the attempt of any such acts, either within or outside the UK? Or have you or any dependants included in this application ever been a member or supporter of an organisation which has perpetrated or supported acts of terrorism in furtherance of its aims?"

I know they've got to ask these things, but I wonder if anyone has ever actually ticked the YES box then sent the application in? Yes sir, I am a terrorist, and here's my cheque for £335!

Incidentally, if you've fallen in love with a British citizen, may I suggest you hurry the hell up and apply for your visa before 2nd April, as the already heartbreaking fees are set to rise. It's proposed that Indefinite Leave to Remain, aka permanent residency, will leap from £335 to £750 for postal applications, and £500 to £950 if you want to apply in person. OWW. The price of love ain't cheap, baby! But as you gaze at your British beloved as he heats up a tin of Tesco Value Baked Beans with a single match, you'll know it was worth it.

Likewise I was looking forward to applying for British citizenship next year, but that's set to rise from £200 to £575. I guess if you're not tempted by the right to vote and the right to a snazzy passport with a lion and a thingy on it, you could always just remain a permanent resident. You will always have the right to pay TAX, and that is a joy in itself!

Today I became a dog owner again. For two whole hours!

Gareth and I were walking home this afternoon and as always I was commenting on every cute hound that went by and whinging, "I wish we could have a dog."

Two minutes later an orangey ball of fur whizzed across the road, narrowly dodging a bus.

There was no owner in sight. She just trotted along, pausing to pee on tyres. She was only a wee puppy and I had visions of her pancaked under a truck. Gareth chased her down the hill and managed to call her over. A tag hanging from her glittery pink collar said her name was Fudge. I called the phone number but there was no answer. So what else could we do? We left a message and carried her home.

She was so very cute. And so very stinky. And whiny. And yappy. I'd forgotten how high maintenance puppies are compared to slow and independent old hounds.

After awhile she calmed down and was content to wander round the flat. It was kinda nice having her around, the quiet pad of her feet and the constant snuffling of her wee nose.

But then there was a new sound. Crunch crunch crunch. She'd helped herself to a carrot from the vegie box and was scarfing it down, dirt clods and all!

Needless to say shortly after all that fibre, she was whining by the door. We made a makeshift leash out of string and took her outside. It's not often you pick up someone's shit after you've only known them half an hour.

Her grateful owner came home from work and discovered Fudge had escaped again. I handed over the hound and was happy to see them reunited, but now I'm feeling quite bereft. A carrot-eating canine would have been ideal for our pseudo-vegetarian househould.

But we'd gotten too cosy too quick, already calling her "Fudgster" and "Fudgo". Gareth had even gone round to the corner shop and bought a tin of Pal Puppy Food (with Beef and Poultry!) just in case she had to stay late. I guess we're sorted for dinner then.

I changed my surname when I got hitched. Not because I had aspirations of being a docile 1950s housewife, rather I just felt like a change from the one I'd received upon exiting the womb. Plus, when you added Reid to my given names Shauna Lee, it made me sound even more like a clapped-out country and western singer. SHAWWWNA LUHEEEE REEEEED. Who could walk away from that?

Shauna Lee, my Shauna Lee
Why won't you come back to me?
The fridge is empty
And I need my tea
Come home, Shauna Lee.

If you change your name by marriage the Australian authorities give you 12 months in which you can get a new passport for free. When did I discover that? After 23 months of marriage. D'oh! So now I have cough up the handsome fee of £75.

And of course this comes after already paying £50 to obtain a Change of Name Certificate from the NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages people because the Passport people don't accept non-Australian marriage certificates. Are they suggesting a marriage certificate with a floating head of Elvis it is not legitimate? That's an outrage.

Last night I was tearing through the flat looking for even more forms of Identification to satisfy the Passport people. I could not find a bloody thing. I upturned boxes, emptied bookshelves and unmade the bed all in vain. There was a panicky, unsettling feeling that the search should have been a lot easier than it was. It wasn't til later on when I wanted to read Gareth a funny bit from a book that I figured it out. I was flicking through the pages and getting increasingly cranky at not being able to find the right passage. It was like I had typed the keyword into my brain and could not figure out why the book wasn't automatically searching and turning itself to correct the page. That would be because IT WAS A BOOK and not a computer.

Likewise when I was sitting on the floor surrounded by shoes and dumbells and dirty socks, the keywords DRIVERS LICENCE were zapping across my eyes and I couldn't understand why the drawers were not opening themselves and why the boxes were not automatically being sorted. I thought there should be random objects floating in the air Mary Poppins style from the sheer force of my searching thoughts. But instead I was getting your search has returned 0 results. It was such a crushing feeling to realise I would have to look in a completely manual, analogue fashion.

Long ago I abandoned my Abandoned Gloves of Scotland project. I was obsessed by all those single gloves on the streets of Edinburgh, so frozen and lonely. But I'd given up taking photos of them since most gloves were black and laying on dark backgrounds like cobblestones or pavement.

Thanks to global warming this winter has been much more photogenic. Gareth went walking in the Ochils, high above Castle Campbell. The air was crisp and the landscape was bright as he sat at atop the hill, sipping coffee from a thermos and rejoicing in the brief respite from his pesky wife.

It was on the descent that he spotted the glove sitting on top of a fence post, artfully arranged by some young punk.

Thank you kindly for your muffin stump advice! It's definitely our shitty old oven. You can whack in a tray of chips for an hour and they'll just lay there, all pale and indifferent. So you say to yourself, Okay, I'll give them five more minutes, then POW! They've turned into cremains. The oven is almost as rubbish as the microwave, which takes six minutes to reheat a small bowl of soup.

I'm in denial that these appliances need replacing. I reason that if I glare at them long enough, they will feel the heat of my rage and transfer that to the uncooked food.

Speaking of ovens, we have some neighbours that can only be described as skanks. There are four generations of them: Grandma Skank, Mama Skank, Teen Mama Skank and Baby Skank. They all have bleached blonde hair and orange complexions courtesy of The Tan Stand and they each drive a Vauxhall Corsa. Actually I am exaggerating because Baby Skank doesn't have hair or a Corsa; it would be unfair to pigeonhole someone at such a tender age.

Anyway, they all live in a flat on the second floor and they always have incredibly important and urgent business to do in their Vauxhall Corsas. They get in the car, crank up some pounding techno, drive away with a squeal of tiny tyres, then return in five minutes. This process is repeated about thirty-seven times a day.

Sometimes the Skank Family have gentleman callers. They drive Corsas too. We are often privvy to their conversations. It's kind of hard avoid, when the blokes don't even bother getting out of the car or switching off the engine or turning down the stereo. They just pull up underneath the Skank Dwelling and roll down the window. Then the Skanks lean out of their window and they shout sweet nothings to each other over the booming bass. It's just like the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet.

The other day I was watching a bowl of frozen edamame circulate in the microwave to no avail when I was rudely interrupted by the stereo throb of a hatchback in the car park. And then came the siren call of the Skank:

MAMA SKANK:  OVEN! Hey OVEN!

SHAUNA:  Did she say Oven?

GARETH:  I think she did say Oven.

[We move to the window and twitch the blinds]

SHAUNA:  What kind of a name is Oven?

GARETH:  Maybe she said Owen.

MAMA SKANK:  HEY OVEN! OVENNNNN!

SHAUNA:  Crikey.

OVEN:  Arriiiiiiiiiiiiiight doll.

MAMA SKANK:  Oven! You're fucken hot, Oven.

GRANDMA SKANK:  I'd totally do you, OVEN!

MAMA SKANK:  I'd totally do you tae, Oven!

GRANDMA SKANK:  Aye only if I can watch, but. OVEN!

So... do we fork out for a new oven and microwave that will enable food to be cooked correctly OR do we save the money so we can afford move far, far away from our annoying neighbours who have lovers called OVEN! This is the conundrum we wrestle with daily.

I have officially just run out of festive cheer. I was all fired up after watching Nigella groping dried fruits and tree ornaments on her show last week and thought, Capital! I am going to do some baking for my work colleagues. Much better than a tin of Quality Street!

So I spent five bloody days poring over my cookbooks and finally decided I would do a Festive Muffin Fest. I narrowed it down to five recipes and spent a fortune on ingredients and even got a new muffin tray. And after all that? THE MUFFINS TURNED OUT SHIT.

I started with the trusty Chocolate Banana muffins that I have made a million times to great acclaim but tonight they were a disaster. Crusty on top and slimy sludge inside. And then the ones with the Nutella in the middle all broke in half. And now the pineapple tropical-ish ones refuse to come out of the tin.

I have no idea why the first dozen failed, let alone THREE DOZEN FAILURES. I am far too cranky to speculate. You can't get much easier than muffins. And I was so careful measure everything properly and not overmix. Perhaps the muffins sensed they would be going before a critical audience and just collapsed under the weight of expectation.

Gareth is a resourceful fella and sawed off all the muffin tops which are almost edible, albeit ugly. He may eat one with a cup of tea as he is contractually obliged to be polite. But all I have to show for three hours of labour is a big bag full of greasy stumps and a filthy kitchen. And no stinking presents for the lads at work.

And I still haven't written any stinking Christmas cards. I am just waiting for the right pen, you know. Hopefully in the next couple of days the right pen will come along and jump into my hand and make the propsect of writing Christmas cards seem wildly exciting.

And I still don't have anything to wear to the stinking work Christmas party on Friday. I spent two hours in the shops this afternoon and just wanted to strangle myself with the nearest bit of tinsel. No matter what the shop, change room, mirror angle or configuration of fluroscent lighting, I looked completely shit in everything.

I quite fancy going outside and hurling muffin stumps at passing cars but it is SLEETING right now so I shall go to bed instead. Rah!

Frequently Asked Questions
Q.  Is this the best you can do after twelve days of silence?
A.  Yes.

I was watching Heather do the Weather on Reporting Scotland the other night and right at the end she stepped to the left to allow the graphic to pop up beside her and proclaim the next day's weather in a giant font. In some countries you'd get Fine and Sunny or maybe even Cool and Cloudy but what did we get here in Scotland?

I just thought that was so depressingly eloquent that I laughed for ten minutes. Sure enough the forecast was accurate!

Yesterday was magnificent. There was a wee football match in Glasgow with Scotland taking on the mighty World Cup finalists France in a Euro 2008 qualifier.

Scotland won! 1 - 0!

We were in the car at the time; our mate Steve had issued a last-minute invitation for a night out in Weegieland. I'd forgotten all about the match, but when we flipped on the radio to find Scotland had scored with just twenty minutes left to go, I got swept up in the agonising, hysterical countdown to the final siren.

It was a historic victory, as the presenters on Radio Scotland breathlessly reminded us every seven seconds. The Scottish team hasn't enjoyed much success in recent years; the match reports are usually pretty grim. On a good day you'd get a "gallant in defeat" sort of headline. They have been rebuilding nicely under their new manager Walter Smith, but last night's victory was still a major upset.

The presenter's voices were raw with pride and emotion. In Australia we're so confident about sport and victory is often expected; demanded. But when it happens over here it can be a magnificient surprise and everyone goes mad in the most joyous, infectious way. Forgive the paraphrasing here but one radio presenter rasped, "Everyone out there keeps saying we're crap! But we're no crap. We just beat France. So everyone, just stop saying we're crap! Because we're no!"

Then another bloke got carried away interviewing Gary Caldwell, the Scottish goal scorer. "Hold on... I have to give you a cuddle first before I ask you any questions. Ahhhh... this cuddle is from all of Scotland!"

Steve lives right near the stadium, so by the time we arrived the Tartan Army had flooded the streets. A singing and dancing swarm of blue and white; flags and kilts and Jimmy hats. People jumped out in front of our car, waving and cheering.

And other folk just tried to flag us down. Gareth's car is a six-year-old silver Peugeot 406, which happens to be the same vehicle as a great number of taxis in this country. Ever since he got it a few weeks ago, we can't go anywhere at night without some drunk leaping out and waving their arms, then giving us the finger when we don't pull over.

So we had a nice night out in Glasgow; it was impossible not to with everyone in such a good mood.

"It's just so brilliant," gushed a woman on the train, clearly overwhelmed by the victory, "At best I'd hoped for a 1-0 win to France. That would have been a respectable gubbing."

"Oh aye!" said her companion, "And now we're the best team IN THE WORLD!"

"How do you get that?!"

"Well Italy won the World Cup, but France beat Italy the other day, and now we beat the Froggies... so that makes SCOTLAND the best team in the world!"

"Ahh," said Gareth. "I love the logic of ten pints."

Monday night I went to the Edinburgh Book Festival for a session called 'Tips On Getting Published', my attempt to seek inspiration beyond self-publishing avec photocopier.

A lot of people turned up for the Tips. They filled the hall and sat up straight in their chairs. They opened their notebooks, clicked their pens and waited to be filled with information. I just had some tissues and a box of mints. Amateur!

On the panel was a literary agent, three publishers and a lawyer. They expelled much wisdom about queries and manuscripts and money (or lack thereof) and agents and enthusiasm, and the crowd dutifully scribbled it down.

Then it was time for audience questions.

"Please keep your questions nice and general," requested the host.

"You were talkin' about libel," growled a large man with shaved head, "Well, say you just got out of prison and you've done a memoir about bein' in prison and in the memoir you talk about people who're still in prison... can they sue you from there?"

Then someone else piped up, "How much would it cost me to send you my manuscript? Is it going to be expensive?"

"You mean like... postage?" asked a baffled publisher.

"Yes!"

The stereotype of the tightarsed Scot won't be dying out any time soon.

We went back last night see David Sedaris. I'd never been to an author reading before so this was a brilliant place to start. SJ got me hooked on his stuff many years ago, so I admit to getting the dopey Fan Girl grin as he read his stories. And he was extremely charming and hilarious during the audience questions too. It's one thing to be a brilliant writer, but to be brilliant out loud, without cigarettes or weeks of editing too? Bonus.

Afterwards, I joined the typically lengthy but civilised queue to get my book signed. I was anxious and wanted to spew, because a girl in the audience had asked Sedaris about the most stupid or irritating thing fans have said to him. He said book signings can be nervewracking for all involved, because you have just a few seconds of contact and you feel some sort of pressure to say something interesting. Apparently some smartarse will always say to him, "Do you talk pretty yet?" and it drives him demented. So what was I going to say? Love your work? I didn't have delusions of being funny or engaging, I just didn't want to be a starry-eyed dickhead.

I was distracted from my angst by an evil triumvirate of journalism students behind me. They made me shiver with their retro shoes and carefully careless hairdos. I pegged them as second years, because they were still in that Holier Than Thou phase of a journalism student's career in which all you can do is MOCK STUFF, or tell the world of your disdain for The Media with its unethical chequebook-weilding practices and how you will Never Be Like That, because you are a real journalist with Integrity!

(This phase ends when you graduate and soon realise there's nae jobs and perhaps you shouldn't have been so hasty in turning down that cadetship at the Hicksville Herald.)

Once they had argued which university had the superior student newspaper, they discussed what they were going to say to David. Should they approach as a trio, or go separately?

"If we go up together and say something collectively brilliant, maybe we'll appear in his next story!"

"Yeah! Although he might blend us into one character. With boobs, two penises and six legs."

"Brilliant!"

More interesting was the veterinary student waiting in front of me. She was making efficient use of her queuing time to study. First it was something about cells with intruiging blobby diagrams, and then she moved on to a page of case studies.

Female intact dog presents with dullness, lethargy and vaginal discharge. She was on heat eight weeks prior.

What the hell was an intact dog? You'd presume it would have to be intact if it had managed to present itself, especially if lethargic. But what about the discharge? Is that terminal?

I scribbled down the case as I peered over her shoulder, word for word; because I had come prepared with a notebook this time and I had make use of it somehow.

I was so busy pondering the plight of the intact dog that I forgot to think of anything interesting to say to David Sedaris, and before you could say "dullness and lethargy" it was my turn.

"Hello!" I said.

"Hello!" said David Sedaris.

He asked my name and I said Shauna and he asked how to spell it so I said S-H-A-U-N-A and he said M-A? Shauma? And I said, No it's N-A you know like Shaun with an A attached. He said Oh I see then asked where was I from. I said Australia and he asked whereabouts in Australia and I said, Oh just a country town that nobody's heard of.

And then he said, "I like those flat whites you have in Australia."

"Oh yeah! Flat whites. You don't really get those over here do you."

"Actually I think there's a cafe in Soho that does flat whites, it's called -"

"Flat White! I heard about that!"

"Yeah!"

"It's all those Aussies in London," I mumbled helpfully, "They really need their flat whites."

And then followed what I perceived to be a pained silence. We were all out of words, so he handed my book back.

They always say you should never meet your heroes. Whenever I read a David Sedaris book from now on, I will remember that vaguely uncomfortable expression and my complete... flat whiteness.

I slinked away and the three Journalists of Tomorrow stepped forward. I should have told him about the dog with the vaginal discharge. That could have been interesting.

The Edinburgh Festivals are quite a different experience now that I'm not living in the middle of Edinburgh. It used to be a short bus ride or walk home after an evening show. But these days if we miss the last train, it's an epic journey on the 1AM bus.

It's an eclectic mix of screeching hens, football revellers and middle-aged Girls Night Out-ers, with the odd posh couple hiding beneath the wife's pashmina as they wonder whose idea it was to leave the car at home.

The air is thick with beer breath and nobody seems to know each other, but drunkeness unites. It's all belching, farts and bellowed banter.

LADY 1:  Can you stop the bus please, driver! This lady is gonnae be sick!

LADY 2:  Dinnae worry, hen! I'll be sick in ma handbag.

LADY 1:  Dinnae worry, driver! She's gonnae be sick in her handbag!

LADY 2:  [BLUUURRK]

LADY 1:  Lucky you had that handbag because I wouldnae be cleaning up your sick. I'll clean up piss, but I hate cleaning up sick.

BLOKE:  Oh that's good coz I'm totally burstin'.

When we finally got off the bus we had to jump right over the stairs and onto the footpath, because some lady had spewed all over them.

Last weekend we made our triumphant return to the very top of Scotland and my favourite village... TONGUE!

You may remember our last trip to Tongue and the bazillion photos I'd taken of signs that said TONGUE this and TONGUE that. Turned out I'd missed one!

Before we got to the Tongue we were in Inverness, stopping off at Culloden - the site of the last major battle to be fought on British soil. It's quite interesting and moving wandering through the field, visualising the brief and bloody battle. But I have to admit my favourite bit was this sign:

We also popped by the Clava Cairns. They date back to 2000BC but they'll be more remembered by us as The Place Where Shauna Did An Enormous Fart That Echoed Through The Trees, Not Noticing The American Tourist Standing Behind Her.

But back to Tongue. We ate dinner in a pub beneath the Tongue Hotel, where the locals played darts and spoke with bizarre accents. They were such decent folk that the barwoman wandered off for twenty minutes and nobody stole anything! Not even a wee bag o' pork scratchings. That wouldn't happen where we live.

We stayed in a lovely B&B that served delicious breakfasts with Madonna's Greatest Hits playing in the background. Our room became slightly less lovely when I stupidly opened the window to let in some fresh air. A giant black cloud of midges immediately stormed in. D'oh! So we spent the next ten minutes swearing and thrashing the air with towels, in the hope of snuffing out the little biting bastards. And then a further ten minutes was required to wipe their smeared corpses off the walls. But it was too little too late. I was awoken on Sunday morning by the sound of my own fingernails frantically scratching dozens of giant red lumps all over my body. And let me tell you, those little shits are NOT shy about where they bite.

After breakfast I picked up some souvenir I HEART Tongue fridge magnets for my colleagues, then we crawled along a single-track road to Durness. Oh baby! Caves! Sheep! Pristine sea and spectacular white beaches! And the sky was more blue than a pervy old man's video collection. Scotland is so breathtakingly beautiful it just makes your bones ache.

I'm aware this has been a What I Did On My Weekend blog lately, but it's summer and one has to turn off the computer and go forth and Do Stuff because soon it will be too dark and depressing to get out of bed. Rather than ramble on further, go forth and check out the photies! They have glowing captions too, so you can see I am doing my bit for Scottish tourism and not just slagging off the food!

LAST FRIDAY, 5PM 
Gareth collects hire car for the big camping trip. We'd booked a Vauxhall Corsa Or Similiar on the internet, it turned out to be a Nissan Micra in an embarassing pastel shade, designed to appeal to old ladies who want their motor to match their blue rinse.

SATURDAY, 11AM 
Check weather forecast on the BBC. Here is an approximation:

SHAUNA:   Hmmm.
GARETH:   Do you think we should still go camping?
S:   Looks a little bit cloudy.
G:   Looks a little bit Scotland.
S:   Well... I'm sure we can handle a bit of water!
G:   Of course we can!

12PM 
Quick trip to supermarket to pick up a disposable barbeque.

1PM 
Finally leave supermarket after wading through aisles full of mothers screaming, "JORDAN! I'LL NO TELL YA AGAIN! YER NO GETTIN' SWEETIES!".

We head north.

3.15PM 
Essential ice cream stop at Tyndrum. It's the last place to get ice cream for bazillions of miles. THE LAST!

3.30PM 
S:   Ooh. Ominous.

4PM 
Arrive at Glen Etive. We unimaginatively decamp at the same spot as last year. It's a nice big flat bit surrounded by a stream with no other people in sight. There's a chunky stepping stone path over the water that seperates the camp from the car.

G:   Right, we've got exactly one hour to get everything over and put the tent up before the forecasted rain.
S:   Allez!

4.05PM 
Rain arrives early.

4.30PM 
Tent erected after much swearing. Our fingers are red and numb. Our jeans are drenched and cling unpleasantly to our thighs like icy toddlers.

4.31PM 
Retire to tent to sulk.

5.15PM 
Legend has it that Avon Skin-So-Soft moisturiser spray is used by Royal Marines to ward off Scotland's notorious midges, the teeny tiny biting insects that are on a perpetual mission to destroy any human enjoyment of the brief summer.

There's a sudden break in the rain, so we slather ourselves in the stuff and seize our chance to crank up the disposable barbeque. A cloud of midges descends immediately.

G:   ARRGH! This Avon stuff is BULLSHIT!
S:   But they're not biting us! Sure there's millions of them in your face and up your nose but they're not biting! It's a miracle!

5.30PM 
The sky starts to spit again, just as the vegetarian sausages hit the grill. We huddle around, trying to figure if it's better to keep your head down and get a faceful of charcoal fumes, or heads up for a mouthful of midges.

5.45PM 
I rearrange the sausages with a fork. They look juicy and brown, which is remarkable for pretend meat cooked on a cardboard box filled with charcoal. You can hear the raindrops sizzle on the plate.
S:   Almost done! Fetch the sauce and rolls. We're going to eat our meal outside if it kills us!

5.50PM 
Rain.
S:   This tent is going to stink of pretend meat all night long.

6PM 
Wild, crazy, tent-rattling rain.
G:   Got any jokes?
S:   Nup. Do you?
G:   No.
S:   I could tell the Stevie Wonder one again. What did Stevie Wonder say when he got a cheese grater for his birthday?
G & S:   It was the best book he'd ever read!

6.20PM  
G:   So this was all your idea, wasn't it?
S:   Oh YES. I had the brilliant idea that after sleeping on a crappy futon on the loungeroom floor for the past week while the Mothership visited, we should go camping and sleep a night ON THE GROUND.
G:   Ahh, you're always having great ideas!
S:   Even better, I thought we should go camping on the day of the women's Wimbledon final, the World Cup play-off AND the season finale of Doctor Who!
G:   Genius!

6.30PM 
S:   I'm just going to close my eyes for a minute.
G:   Me too.

9.30PM  
We awake from a surprisingly deep sleep.
S:   It's stopped raining!
G:   Quick! Let's go outside and make a cuppa.

10.15 PM 
The kettle boils just as the last of the sun is sucked from the sky. Stupid camp stove that unlights itself. We barely have time to add the milk before it starts to rain aaagain. We retreat to our quarters.

10.30PM 
S:   Know any ghost stories?
G:   No.
S:   Oh.

10.35PM 
Zzzzzzzz.

[Then it rains all bloody night.]

SUNDAY, 8AM
Arise to find our dainty wee creek has swollen considerably. As in, completely drowning the stepping stone path. We are now stranded on an island.
S:  Camping RULES!

8.10AM 
Midges swoop as we dismantle the tent.
G:   Why are those little bastards up so early?
S:   We forgot the Skin So Soft!
G:   Arrgh! My eyes!
S:   Arrgh! My ears!

8.30AM 
I volunteer to carry our stuff across the water. My shoes were best sacrificed as they were old and crap and Gareth was driving home, which would be most unpleasant in wet boots.

The water is knee-deep and icy cold. Right on cue, the rain cranks up again.

8.50AM 
S:   Righto! I'm going to chuck my shoes over to you! Put them on and keep your Docs dry!
G:   Okay!
S:   Are you ready? I'm going to throw them now!
G:   Yes!
S:   Are you sure you're ready? I'm chucking them now! Get ready! Here they come!

[PLOP!]

S:   D'oh.

10.30AM 
We drive through Glen Coe then down the coast to Oban where we stop for a traditional Scottish breakfast of chips and brown sauce. Which seemed nutritionally sound compared to the gigantor deep-fried haggi.

MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY: 
My midge bites swell into giant, festering, itchy sores so I spend the week surreptitiously rubbing my flaming limbs against furniture until I fork out for some antihistamine cream. Remember kids, Avon WORKS!

...

drookit
(droo·kit) Dialect, chiefly Scot ~adj.
1. drenched, soaked through.

Tonight the sun will set at 10 o'clock. Precious, precious sun. I want to sit in the back yard, tune out the sqwarking baby upstairs and the village skanks in their Vauxhall Corsas, then watch the sky until the last bit of light has drained.

This will be my fourth Scottish summer. I've completely erased the memory of Australian summers, where it was so hot I was an apple in the mouth short of resembling a pig on a spit. Now I've completely adapted to the Northern Hemisphere, thus finding today's maximum temperature of 21 degrees (70'F) positively subtropical.

Would you believe that for the past three days I have walked to the train station at 6.45AM without a jacket. After months of darkness, scarves and coats, it feels almost obscene to feel a breeze crawl up the hairs on your forearms. Not to mention sunlight oozing over bare toes! You may as well be naked.

Until I lived here I never understood the big deal about seasons. I remember in high school English, when John Keats asked, "Where are the songs of spring?". My response was, "WHO CARES!". And how dull to write a whole stinking Ode To Autumn in the first place. Seasons to me were just endless variations of Hot, occasionally interrupted by rain or hayfever.

But now I'm sad bastard who crows at the sight of a blossom after a long winter. I'd gladly pen poems about bunnies and bumble bees if only I had the rhyming skills. Instead I've been doing the next best thing: tuning into Spring Watch.

Non-Brits will remember Bill Odie as the wee one from The Goodies, but apparently somewhere along the line he turned into a birdwatching camouflage-wearing nature-guru TV presenter.

At first I couldn't believe something as tedious as Spring Watch would be allowed on air. Basically, there's Bill Odie and crew on some farm in England, poking cameras into ponds, nests and burrows. Then they wait and they wait and they wait. Then the footage of various creatures engaging in springtime activities is broadcast in a prime timeslot every weeknight. There's a lot of bird migration stories, bird-on-bird action stories, bird laying eggs stories, bird fishing for insect stories, bird leaving the nest stories.

When Spring Watch returned last week I screamed at the telly, "Not freaking Bill Odie and his freaking birds again? WHO CARES!?".

Because British animals are boring. They don't kill you. They don't bite, maim or strangle. They don't have to trek through a desert for water, or run like the clappers from a roaring bushfire. They don't sit in trees getting drunk on eucalyptus. They don't eat babies. Without fangs, poison or fearsome jaws of death, where's the entertainment value?

But somehow this year I've been hooked, just in that idle half hour before The Daily Show starts. I blame the Red Squirrels for being so rare and prettier than the bastard Grey Squirrels. Then the badgers were endearing, digging tunnels at midnight. Then the kingfisher was fishing and the otters were frolicking in Shetland. All these creatures I'd only previously known from Beatrix Potter books. Tits, swallows, robins, wrens! British animals may not be cold-blooded tourist killers, but they are cute and wholesome; and entertaining in their own way.

Where was I going with this? I can't remember. It's 10.47 now and there's still bits of blue outside. Spring Rules. That's all I meant to say.

Trade advertisments in the local newspaper today. I'd hire them for the puns alone!

Today we finally wind up Anniversary Week, which somehow ended up morphing into six weeks.

In the interests of balanced reporting, I decided to speak to some Edinburgh expats to gauge their views on being a stranger in this strange town. You poor readers have been subjected to three years of my personal rants and raves, but what do other foreigners think of the place? Am I the only one who goes on about the food? Am I the only one with a pathological fascination with River City?

Let's meet our panel...

Rhiannon - My sister is blogless but has consulted on many WNP entries. She now resides in London after putting in a good stint in Jockland.

Pille - Estonian foodblogger extraordinaire. I stumbled across her blog when she'd written about a restaurant I'd been to in the Estonian countryside, and then discovered she lived in Edinburgh... the world is too small!

Rory - A fellow Canberra escapee, Rory is a blogging veteran and if not for meeting him I'd never have met Dr G, which is just one more reason why he's a top bloke.

Anna - A lovely Canadian and seasoned traveller, now doing a stint in Scotland before moving on to Australia.

Now on to the questions!

I kept a paper diary during 2003, our first year in Scotland. As a teen I'd been an avid devotee of the paper diary, until one day aged seventeen I had an attack of paranoia, convinced that my angsty scribbles were being intercepted by the household authorities. I unceremoniously burned five years of Collins A5 To A Page and vowed never to write again.

But I'm glad I revived the habit for 2003. We didn't get internet access at home until September so blogging was sporadic. By the time I'd get to an internet cafe, my entries were heavily edited and largely cheery. People constantly reminded me how lucky we were to have this opportunity, thus I was loathe to focus on any negatives less I be told I was an ungrateful arse.

So the paper diary tells the real story of the ups and downs of moving to the other side of the world. It's uncensored, illegible, whiny, lonely, banal, self-absorbed, scared, obnoxious, bitchy, paranoid, pathetic, and gramatically incorrect. In the spirit of honesty and laughing at oneself, here is a few selected high(low)lights.

WARNING: Angst and self-pity ahead!

25 March - Have packed up entire life. Never thought would happen. Doesn't seem like a "Shauna" thing to do, does it.

Clearly crapping my pants here!

March 28 - Flight [from Frankfurt] to Edi was uneventful, Rhi and I reminisced about Aussie food.

We'd been away from Oz less than 48 hours and we were already getting misty-eyed on about Australian cuisine! Priorities, man. The next day I wrote in Edinburgh, "Every shop seems to sell pre-made sandwiches wrapped in plastic. Must be all they eat over here."

April 1 - Got our first taste of Scots rain today. Went out to library and it just PISSED down. Nicked into Boots to get brolly. Fuck everything is so expensive. £15 = $45 for brolly. Then Rhi leaves hers in the bloody shop.

We almost bawled when we realised we'd left the $45 brolly in the coffee shop where we'd just spent approximately $30 on two hot chocolates and a scone. Three years later, I still can't break the habit of translating prices back into Aussie dollars. I quite enjoy it in a sick and twisted way.

April 4 - Got up and went to Argos, funny shop. You write down numbers from a catalogue then they get it from 'out the back'.

There's something about Argos that is infinitely fascinating to foreigners. I remember when my friend Jenny returned from two years in London, one of the first things she mentioned was her trip to Argos to get a hairdryer, how you just browse the catalogue then the magic elves fetch it from their mystical store cupboard. Momo wrote about it too! Argos sounds like a Soviet relic where one collects their brown overalls and soap rations, but you can buy anything from a watch to a saucepan to a freaking home gymnasium and somehow it's all there waiting for you, Out The Back.

April 12 - Americans truly SHIT ME to tears. I try & be openminded, non-judgmental, but every one I have encountered in person this yr has been a loud & annoying FUCKWIT. Our bus trip was full of em today. Went to Loch Ness via Trossachs & Ben Nevis. Pretty cool.

OH DEAR! Now before you send that hatemail, ask yourself - have you ever been tired and cranky and made a gross, sweeping generalisation about a country? If not, I deserve your flaming missive! But please bear in mind I was very new to this tourist caper. I'm quite the diplomat now but that day I was impatient, intolerant and positively seething at a family whose son never once looked up from his Game Boy to admire the scenery, and asked the driver approximately every twenty minutes when were we stopping for more food. Apart from that one family three years ago, I love Americans!

April 28 - Work. Blah blah work. Rhi and I ended up punching each other out of sheer boredom.

Rhi and I worked at the same place for our first Scottish job - data entry. We were quite literally locked away in an attic typing medical information all day long, unsupervised. After typing for eight hours together, we'd descend the stairs together, catch the bus home together, cook dinner together, sit down to eat together. One of us would say, "How was your day?" and the other would say, "It was shithouse!" and the other would say, "Yeah I know, I WAS THERE!".

All that tedium and togetherness soon sent us over the edge and we resorted to primitive hair-pulling and assault to pass the time.

May 20 - Went to net cafe & was annoyed to see noone's commenting these days. Fuckers.

Around this time I was feeling friendless and pathetic, so I clung to my blog as a connection to my treasured Old Life. So a lack of comments or emails would make me mope for days, convinced everyone back home hated me and had moved on. Sob sob... don't you love how now matter how old you get, you always sound thirteen years old in a paper diary?

June 3 - Tonight was pub quiz @ Baillie in Stockbridge... Rory, Jane, Rhi & David were there, & this guy Gareth. He really grew on me. Very shy smile & soft accent. Quiet sense of humour. Oh I do believe I have a wee crush.

This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship! *gag*

June 6 - Gareth is really sweet & has a lovey accent. Just something about him... Maybe I am just getting a wee bit frisky & lonely?

Yeah? Well maybe you shouldn't have chucked out your vibrator before you left Australia?

June 20 - We came up the Champs Elysses & there was the Arc de Triomphe, HUGE & so beautiful. Eiffel Tower was cool, & I classily did a fart there. HA! It's so surreal being in this stinkingly famous place.

This was our first European jaunt! For dinner we ate ham and cheese sandwiches from the supermarket. As we have unimaginatively done in every city we've visited since.

July 21 - I'm scoffing chocolate orange. WHY? Because it was on special. OH DEAR.

Rhi and I were flamingly broke in 2003. We were alarmed at how quickly we adopted the Way of the Mothership, buying everything generic or whatever was On Special.

August 5 - News was all about the 'heat wave' today. 25 bloody degrees if you're lucky. Ha!

And I still say, Ha!

August 17 - Oh what a nothing sort of day. Mum called, was nice. Feel a bit homesick lately, disconnected. Was upset by dumb things, like a pissweak bakery section at the supermarket.

It's always about the bloody food!

Around about this time Rhi and I started working two jobs so we could save enough dosh for our Russia Trip in 2004. The seven-day working week was a real bitch, so all we have now is page after page of exhausted whining. And angsting about boys. I won't subject you to that!

November 27 - Tonight I bummed around watching stupid reality shows about people leaving the UK. Sure can see now why they do it.

Despite finally hooking up with Gareth earlier that month, I was still a grumpy bastard and clearly struggling to adjust to a Scottish winter!

And now we have another wee gap in proceedings, because every entry is about Gareth and how dreamy he is and how paranoid and insecure I am. You really don't want to read that!

Now I truly embrace the Inner Teen! After months of anticipation, I had dear friends staying from Australia and the weather gods were conspiring to show them the crappiest time as possible. Every tourist attraction we visited was closed, then Edinburgh's famous New Years Eve festivities were cancelled due to appalling winds. Plus work was hellish and I hadn't seen Gareth for days, fuelling my pity party.

December 31 - I just don't see how he will possibly stay interested in me... But I will try not to wreck it. Please don't let me wreck it. It really was a good 2003 though. Did a lot of things I never thought I'd do. Now I just need to be optimistic & positive & try harder in 2004.

DRAMA! WOE! INSECURITY!

I bought another diary for 2004. But I quit after three months, when I discovered living the life was much more fun than angstily writing about the life :)

Today is my three year anniversary of living in Scotland. I cannae believe it, hen!

So let's all celebrate with a week of special Anniversary posts, gazing fondly back at 1096 days of adventure! But don't panic, I'm not going to rehash them individually. And when I said "week" I probably mean "month", knowing my typically slacketyslackarse rate of publication.

. . .

On a particularly miserable rainy night last week, Gareth and I were watching the Commonwealth Games. It was shot after shot of lovely sunny Melbourne - all blue skies, cafes, green parks and goodness.

"WHY did you come here?" Gareth cried, "WHY?!"

"I don't knoooow!"

We howled at the telly for awhile.

Why indeed? Goodness knows I've spent much of the past three years whining endlessly en blog about my homesickness and the apparent superiority of all things Down Under. I am always waiting for the indignant email, "Well if you love Australia so much, WHY DON'T YOU GO BACK THERE!?".

I may bitch about the darkness, the deep-fried and the price of undies, but I do love it here! While I will never stop pining for the friends, family and food back home, I have settled into life in the UK. We humans are good at adapting to new environs; we make things work wherever we are. That's what makes us the superior species! You never hear a koala say, "Dude, I am going to live in the Bahamas just to see what it's like". Nor have I met a monkey just back from a gap year in Iceland.

So here's a few things I've come to love over the past few years:

The Food
While I've got good blog mileage from the shitty cuisine of Scotland, it's not all lard and animal bits. I now can't imagine life without clementines, curry, creme fraiche or Green and Blacks chocolate (although G&Bs is now sold in Australia). British cheese rules. And you can't beat the local berries in the summertime. Berries are about the only thing cheaper here than in Oz.

I love the comfort foods like sticky toffee pudding and bacon sandwiches. I love eating a hot Christmas lunch when it's actually cold outside. I love fish and chips at the beach in summer when it's almost as cold as Christmas. I love reading food magazines where they talk about damsons and treacle and rhubarb and toad in the hole; all that stuff I previously only knew from Enid Blyton books. It all just makes me want to knot some sheets together and climb out the window of the boarding school, and meet up with my pals for a midnight feast. HURRAH!

Twice The Workplace Bludging
Summer is in July, Christmas is in December. Obviously. But this means DOUBLE THE BLUDGE! The festive season is a blur of boozy office parties and diminished work ethic. Then once you've survived the bleakness of February, it's almost spring, which is almost summer! So the workload slows a little, and everyone nicks off to Spain. They come back blistered and glowing and their colleagues squeal, "You're looking well!".

Meanwhile back in Australia, July is the start of the financial year and the middle of winter. We're all working like mad and there's no fun until Christmas. I have grown fond of the UK working year; the next holiday never seems too far away.

The Benefits of a Small Island
After the vastness of Australia, I still can't get my head around the weeness of the UK. An hour in the car and you're in the Scottish Highlands. The same on the plane and you're in London or Amsterdam, and one more you're in Paris. New York is a long weekend instead of your life savings and possible deep vein thrombosis. "Are we there yet?" has vanished from my vocabulary!

The Telly
The telly's good here, kiddies. If you can wade through the reality shows there's some cracking stuff left behind. My favourite shows are Top Gear, Grand Designs and The Hairy Bikers, the latter I believe is now being shown in Oz, hurrah!

Top Gear is, oddly enough, about cars. As well as road testing posh vehicles, they also engage in brilliant acts of destruction like:

• A football match with a giant ball and ten Toyota Aygos as players
• Racing a Mazda MX5 against a greyhound
• Putting a Citroen 2CV behind a jumbo jet with engines blazing - POW!
• Strapping a couple of rockets to a Mini and blasting it down an Olympic ski jump - watch here!

I also love this whole interactive digital television thingy. We paid £30 for a wee box that you plug into the telly, and were rewarded with oodles of extra channels. Which we hardly watch.

However, it's all about the sport! I already loved watching sport on the BBC - no advertising! - but now magic happens when you press the Red Button. Interaction! Multiple screens! For free! During Wimbledon you can flip between all the different matches. During the Commonwealth Games when the synchronised swimming became too exciting, I could just press Red and switch to Weightlifting or Bowls. The plethora of choice makes me feel all giddy with the power!

The Sunday Papers
Soon after arrival, I discovered that the Sunday paper was the best way to fake knowing what the bloody hell was going on in this country. News, sport, arts, all for £1.50! These days I get The Observer mainly for the supplements. They are the Master of the Supplement! They're better than many glossy magazines, packed with quality photos and cracking stories. I always make myself read the newsy newspaper bits first, then carefully fold them up and put them in the recycling, and only then am I allowed to read the supplement. Ooh there's nothing like prolonged anticipation.

There's a different theme each week - Food, Sport or Music. Is there anything more important in life than Food, Sport or Music?! Not to me, chaps. If they could rename the fourth supplement Sleep, it would be the perfect quartet.

Three years ago today, Rhi and I were floating somewhere above China, halfway between our old life in Australia and whatever lay in store for us in Scotland.

Yesterday afternoon Gareth and I were walking down North Bridge in Edinburgh, picking our way through the crowds of tourists and goths. A woman was sprawled on the footpath, her bleached tresses askew, her trousers around her ankles.

Her equally inebriated mate was trying and failing miserably to help her to her feet.

"'Scuse me pal," he yelled out to Gareth, "Gis a hand to pick her up?"

It took all three of us to haul off her the ground. Unusually she had not been floating in a puddle of vomit or pee.

"Aww thankshh," she slurred, wrestling her handbag back over her shoulder. "Thankssho much!"

"That's okay," said Gareth. "See ya later." We headed off down the street.

"Wuh-wuh-wait!" hollered the guy. We turned back.

"Would you mind pulling her troosers up?" he asked me. "She cannae dae it hersel'."

Without hesitation, I walked behind the woman. Crouching down, I regarded her bare buttocks - pale, gelatinous and bisected by a sparkly black g-string. I gathered up her jeans and gave a brisk upward yank.

"Aww thanks. Yer so kind hen thanksshomuch."

"No problem!"

We strolled on. It wasn't til about an hour later that Gareth said, "Wait a minute, did you just pull up some bare-cheeked lassie's trousers in the middle of the street without even pausing for thought?"

After three years, it had seemed like just another sunny 4 o'clock in Scotland. But had that happened on Day One, I probably would have run screaming straight back to the airport.

You might recall my eyebrows were waxed into a state of Permanent Surprise back in September. It's taken all these months for them to revert to their usual feralness. Not wanting to risk Lynette The Ripper again, I scoured the Yellow Pages for somewhere new.

I'm somewhat wary of Beauty Establishments here in Scotland. I've not had much luck. Take hairdressers, for example. It took me two and half years to find a goodun. After three lopsided chops from a curly-haired Kiwi, I jumped ship, oddly enough to another Kiwi. He became known as the Nicholson Street Butcher and we must never speak of him again. And then there was a third Kiwi, who was a genius and restored my faith in her people. But she disappeared after three cuts, deciding that the grass was greener back in Auckland.

So I moved on to a Scottish lass, who was quietly spoken but deadly fast and accurate with the scissors. Which suited me fine, because I don't go there for the banter. It was all going beautifully until I showed up for a colour one day only to be told abruptly that she, "No longer works at this establishment". After sobbing briefly that the good ones always leave me, the head stylist assured me it wasn't personal and tended to my locks herself.

It wasn't until a few months later when we'd built up that inane hairdresser/hairdressed repartee that she casually mentioned that my former stylist had been fired for repeatedly showing up drunk. And by the way, she was now in jail for attempted murder! She'd stabbed her boyfriend! How deliciously sordid. But... but... what about all those times she'd asked me in hushed tones, How bout I chop off another inch? What was that? Practice?!

Anyway, there I was last week in the waiting room of my chosen New Place. It was dead charming, like walking into a teenage slumber party. There were comfy old couches, wooden floors, magazines and ladies with cotton wool stuffed 'tween their toes as they waited for polish to dry. I would have been content to sit there all night reading, and was almost annoyed when the Wax Mistress called my name.

She was smiley and she had red hair.

"So what can I do for you?"

"It's the eyebrows. They sneak up on me all the time. They're pale and hard to spot, and they switch from neat and tidy to pure mental overnight. I can never catch the bastards!"

"Tell me about it!" She pointed to her own ginger brows.

Maybe it's true what Gareth says about the Ginger Understanding. There's a scarlet-locked baby living in the flat upstairs that we refer to as the Ginger Bairn (where ginger = redhead, and bairn = baby in the Scottish vernacular). Ginger Bairn recently learned to walk. Actually, it bypassed walk and went straight to run, and spends its days galloping round on the cursed laminated floors.

"Shauna!" Gareth will often scream above the din, "Will you please go tell the Ginger Bairn to sit down?!"

"Why me?"

"Because it will listen to you. Just talk to it, Ginger to Ginger. It will understand its own kind!"

This Wax Mistress certainly understood her own kind. All the perils of gingerism. The paradox of the pale eyelashes yet the crotch so lurid it can be seen from space.

"I had a bad experience last time," I said.

"Oh? What happened?"

"I was butchered. My husband said I looked like the headlights on the new Mercedes. My expression was locked on 'surprised'."

"How surprised are we talking?"

"Like, surprise tinged with alarm."

"Like, surprised like the plot twist in The Crying Game."

"Yes!"

"Well I won't let that happen again," she soothed, "You're more suited to a slightly thicker brow anyway. Now just lay back here and I'll sort everything."

Every other brow wax I've had was over in a minute. A perfunctory brush, a slap of hot wax, a rrrrrrip, then a brief exchange of many pounds. But this woman took her time, all seriousness as she combed and measured. Did she brutally rip the stray hairs with wax, or did she just coax them out with some sort of musical interlude, a la the Pied Piper? I can't recall.

"Your brows have a fantastic natural arch to them," she cooed afterwards, massaging lotion into my flaming forehead, "They're really lovely."

"Oh cheers," I mumbled. Take that, bitches! Finally, something to feel superior about. Bums may shrink or widen, and breasts will rise and fall, but eyebrows are forever!

The whole experience was magic. My brows were tidy but not anorexic. And instead of dismissing me with a bored wave then nicking oot the back for a fag, the Wax Mistress helped me with my coat and waited politely while I fumbled with my hat and scarf. She even held the door open and wished me goodnight!

The biggest shock was that it cost four pounds less than the old place. That's two pounds less per brow! Value for money and stellar customer service in Scotland, all in one day! This was definitely an anecdote I would store up for when I next met up with expat Australians and we sit around eating cake and making bitchy generalisations about our adopted nation.

Yes indeed, my complete surprise would still be registered on my face today, a whole week later; except of course the brows don't do that anymore.

Well, I've been a moody little shit this week. The Darkness is getting to me again. Going to work in the dark, getting home in the dark. Etcetera, etcetera. Then I got into a huff at work this morning because I had to put up the Christmas decorations, and they were in the same jingle jangle tangled state I'd left them in last Christmas, when I'd once again stuffed them into the box in a huff because I'd been convinced Gareth wouldn't propose and I'd be deported from the UK and definitely not be around the next Christmas and some other Antipodean temp would have to deal with them. Ha!

Putting up the decs at work contains none of the joy of putting up the decs at home. There's no nostalgic crowing over heirloom ornaments or fighting over who gets to put the star on top of the tree. There's not even anyone to fight with, because you have sole decorating duties. And there's no tree, unless you count the plastic plants. There's just a pile of tinsel bought at Safeway ten years ago, choked with ancient lumps of cellotape.

After I halfheartedly threw Christmas cheer over all the cubicles I asked one of the managers could I take the afternoon off.

"Why?" he asked. "Is it because you're cranky?"

"Yes!"

"On you go then."

I really love the guys I work with. They are gems.

So I stomped off at lunch time, stopping at the gym to do a Body Pump class in the hope of producing some happy chemicals. Then I came home, did the dishes, then decided to go back out and take a photo of the wintery landscape for you, in order to illustrate my shitty mood. By the time I got beanied and gloved up it was too dark to get a decent shot. Instead I am going to post a mediocre blog entry, and by the time it's finished I will have snapped out of my sulk and be sane again, so I'll scurry off to watch Ready Steady Cook.

During my first Scottish winter I began to notice all these lost gloves in the streets of Edinburgh. Some on footpaths, some on stone walls, some impaled on fence posts, some stuck up trees, some floating down the canal, some caked with spew. I don't know how so many people come to lose just one glove. I started taking photos of them and had this brilliant idea that I would create a photo gallery called Abandoned Gloves of Scotland and put it on the internet. But once it got to the next winter I realised what a crap idea it was, because 95% of the gloves are black and 95% of them are found upon grey backgrounds (pavement, road, cobblestones) which makes for really shithouse photos. Och well.

I sacrificed another pint of blood for the People of Scotland today. Just like the first time, I am not doing it for the common good but only so Gareth can't outdo me in the Smug and Righteous department.

The room was full of mothers who'd brought their little kids along for some sort of ghoulish entertainment. The wee girl on my left chanted Ten Little Indians over and over again until her Mum had surrendered her pint. Then the little tacker on my right covered her face with her hands, peeking through her fingers from time to time to shriek and gasp dramatically. And then, "Mummy! Get the doctor! YOUR BLOOD'S TURNING GREEN!".

Unlike last time there were no queues today. Most of the town seemed to be queuing at the fish and chip shop down the road instead. They say only 6% of Scots donate blood. So if 90% of the population were having deep fried shite for tea tonight, how's there going to be enough juice to revive all those flabby hearts when they finally give out? It just doesn't add up.

Just when you think you ken everything there is to ken about living in Scotland, you get a rude awakening. Last night the doorbell rang and we argued half-heartedly over who would extract themselves from the couch to answer.

"Go on, you get it."

"No you get it! I know like two people in this town. It'll be someone for you."

"But it will be good for you to interact with the locals."

"Bah!"

I stomped off and pressed the intercom button.

"Yes?!"

"Gggzahhs!!" came a chorus of small, garbled voices.

"Sorry?"

"Gzzgghs!"

"WHAT?" I shouted over the screech of static.

"Gzzziah!"

I wasn't going to ask a third time and admit I'd been defeated by another bizarre strain of the Scots accent. So I pressed the Open Door button and let the voices in, hoping if they were axe murderers they'd just bypass our flat and pick on someone upstairs. But they didn't, I could see their outlines through the frosted glass of our front door.

It was three little costumed kids. A girl with ginger curls springing out from a black witches hat, a boy with a ghost mask, and another wee boy who just seemed to be along for the ride. They all took a shaky breath then started chanting some sort of incomprehensible song with the bored, rushed tones of someone who has performed said song many times before.

Then they stopped and looked up at me expectantly.

I gawked back with great confusion. Were they trying to sell me something? Was it a walk-a-thon? Did they have raffle tickets? "Ummm..."

"Trick or treat!" said the masked one.

"Trick or treat?"

"Aye!"

I frowned. "It's a bit early for Halloween isn't it?"

"It's only four days away,"

"Well it's more like five..."

They kept staring.

"Well, crikey," I said. "You've caught me unprepared! I'm really sorry... I don't have anything to give you."

"Oh." The little one pulled his mask down, his bottom lip coming with it. "That's alright."

They slinked back outside into the rain.

"Well you wouldn't believe that," I announced to Gareth. "It was kids! Trick or treating! Four days before halloween! I didn't have anything to give them. How was I to know they were going to spring that on me? They just mumbled some shit at the intercom!"

"Did they say they were guisers?"

"Guisers?"

"Yeah, guisers."

"Guisers. Rings a bell. The word did start with a G. But I couldn't understand..."

"They were guisers! Trick or treaters. They were guising!"

"That's not a real word!"

"It is."

"So that's why they were singing?"

"Yes."

"But! But! I didn't even know you went Trick or Treating in Scotland!" I spluttered. "I thought only Americans did that on telly! Nobody told me!"

"Well, we do! We go guising!"

"Oh. So in effect, those kids actually did state their purpose at the door."

"Yep..."

"And I let them into the building... so they'd have thought, woohoo, we're going to get candy!"

"Yep."

"And I stood there and let them sing their little pleading-for-candy song, and then I said, HA HA HA THERE IS NO CANDY!"

"Yep!"

"Oh my god! They must think I am the most evil bitch in the world!"

"Yep!"

"Nooooooooo! Nooooooooo!" I curled up into a ball and howled while Gareth laughed.

"Shut up!" I thumped his head with a cushion. "This is all your fault! I TOLD you that you should have answered the door! YOU would have known what a guiser was! Now there's three little kids out there hating my guts!"

"Why don't you just run after them and give them something?" Gareth joked.

"But I don't have anything!"

"What about your Finland stash?"

I gasped. Gareth recently went to Finland for work and returned with a generous selection of Finnish chocolates. I became obsessed with Fazer brand chocolate after visiting Helsinki last year. It's not posh like 70% Valrhona with rare Venezuelan cocoa beans handpicked by monkeys, but for commerical everyday chocolate its craps all over your Galaxy or Hershey bars. I keep the stockpile in the back of a cupboard and carefully ration it, sometimes just getting it out to look at the pretty wrappers with all those crazy Finnish vowels. Precious Finnish chocolates. All for me. Not for grotty little children.

But the guilt was overwhelming. I sprang up from the couch. "We have to go out there find them."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes!"

"They'll be long gone now!"

"They can't have gone far. They're only on little legs!"

"They're probably at home, greeting* on their mother's shoulder as she tries to convince them that not all people are as cruel as that mean old lady up the road."

"Just get your coat!"

It was quiet outside. I scanned the empty streets for pointy hats, feeling the weight of guilt and 200 grams of Geisha bars in my pocket.

Then we heard a faint knocking in the distance.

"Follow that knock!"

I found them huddled in a little alley, gazing plaintively at someone's unanswered door.

"Hey," I shrieked. "Little kids!"

They slowly turned and regarded me with their saucer eyes.

"Are you the little kids who knocked on my door just before?"

"Yes."

"Well! You have to let me explain!" I gushed, "You see, I'm Australian! I didn't even KNOW that you did Halloween over here, I thought it was just the Americans, so you totally caught me off guard, you know what I mean?"

They continued their bewildered stare.

"So I had to track you down and explain that I'm not evil, just ignorant, and here's some chocolate for you!" I shoved the bars at the Ginger Witch. "I'm really sorry, it's all I had.**"

"Thank you," they chorused.

"Woohoo!"

* greeting - it's Scottish for crying.

** Not strictly true, but I was hardly going to surrender my entire stash. Who knows how long it will be until I or someone I know is in Finland again, or one of the Baltic States where Finnish chocolate is also sold. I bet they didn't even appreciate the delicate hazelnutty praline goodness of the Geisha bar; they were probably cursing That Weirdo Australian and wishing they'd got some mini Mars Bars. Och well.

I got my eyebrows waxed yesterday. Since they're quite light in colour I tend to neglect them until one morning I'll peer close in the mirror and notice they've gone feral beyond the reaches of plucking. Anyway, yesterday I was attended to by a perky lass named Lynette, and I knew instinctively I shouldn't trust someone so perky. Now my eyebrows are ridiculously thin and arched like a cartoon villian. I turned to my husband for reassurance.

SHAUNA:  Do my eyebrows look funny to you?

GARETH:  Whoa!

S:  I knew it! She butchered me!

G:  You look like the Mercedes!

S:  What?

G:  Jeremey Clarkson said on Top Gear that the headlights of the new Mercedes look like a woman whose had a banana shoved up her arse.

S:  Just GREAT! I look permanently surprised!

G:  Don't worry. People will just see you walking round and think you're REALLY AMAZED by Australia!

The Skanks arrived at noon! They came from far and wide. Tracksuited blokes and babes with orange tans and skunk-striped hair tumbled out of Vauxhall Novas in a flurry of exhaust and thumping bass. They were armed with cigarettes, crisps and bottles of Buckfast. There were disposable BBQs blazing and selection of techno on the stereo. This was looking like a major Skank Gathering. At four o'clock when the carpark was completely full and they started playing the Crazy Frog song without a trace of irony, we knew it was time to evacuate.

Our getaway car was an aging Alfa Romeo that a friend has loaned us for a few months. "It has character," he said. Have you ever driven an Alfa? It is quite an experience. I say this purely from a passenger point of view as I am too afraid to get behind the wheel. I just let myself be shuttled around the countryside like a princess. Actually I do serve one purpose - I am Chief Door Unlocker. The Alfa has central locking but it only works from the passenger side, and only occassionally opens all four doors. And then you can only lock it back up again if the vehicle is in the right mood. If not, you have stand there in the supermarket carpark opening and shutting each door in a complex sequence until it decides to work, bang clash bang crash like a kindergarten percussion band. Also, the fuel gauge veers wildly from E to F depending on hills, it gulps down oil and the right-hand indicator only works if you hit a speed hump. But it whisked us away from the Skank Party so we weren't complaining.

One the greatest things about a small country like Scotland is that you don't need to go far for a complete change of scenery. In parts of Australia you could drive for a week screaming, "Are we there yet?" and you still wouldn't be. But over here if you don't like a particular village, then just drive ten minutes and you'll be in another. Sure, it may look a lot like the last one - each stocked with a fish and chip shop, small supermarket and Chinese takeaway - but at least it's different. Unless you go way up north you're rarely so far away from civilisation that you need to crouch between open car doors at the side of the road if you're needing the loo.

We wound up in Aberfeldy around 8pm and looked for a room. There's some brilliant B&Bs in Scotland, run by sweet old ladies who bake scones and turn down the sheets. But the real gems are those staffed by the indifferent and unwelcoming. Everything is too much trouble, and it is made clear that your very presence is horribly inconvenient. When we were in the States earlier this year we lapped up the dazzling customer service, but it was somehow cosy and reassurring to return to Scottish small town surliness.

"We were wondering if you had any rooms available for tonight?"

The hotel lady pursed her lips. "Well! I don't know. I suppose I could go and look. But I think you'll find we're quite busy tonight."

She stalked away and returned ten minutes later, "There's one room left if you want it. Don't turn the shower on, because it doesn't work. Breakfast is between 9 and 9.30 and that's it. If you're going to stay out late you'll have to leave me your key."

I wasn't quite sure how you could stay out late in Aberfeldy. We went out to find some dinner and of course the only thing open was the chippie. This is another aspect of travelling round the Scottish countryside that I love. All you ever eat is fish suppers. Every time we go away for a weekend I declare, "This time we are NOT going to eat another stinking fish supper for dinner!". But sure enough we end up stabbing away at a pile of shrivelled chips and limp, greasy fish with those tiny wooden forks, loving it and regretting it all at the same time.

The next day we ate our breakfast in the allotted timeslot then drove around the countryside til we ended up back home, avoiding right turns as the Alfa was acting up again.

We had a great day out in Glasgow with Rory & Jane in chilly Spring sunshine. I've lived in Scotland over two years but today was my proper visit to Weegieland; the other trips were just stumbling in the dark to concerts. A highlight was the Scotland Street School Museum, a beautiful building designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. There's old classrooms and inkwells and pinafores and chalkboards textbooks and best of all a biscuit tin full of Cuisenaire rods! I plunged my hand right into the pile, the lovely wooden clinky clink noise they made reminded me of how much I hated stinking maths.

There's also some hopscotch thingies in the corridors. We hopped around for ages trying to remember the rules. It was much more of a cardio workout than I recalled.