Never a dull moment around here!

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I wrote last year about my friend Emilia and her adventures. They moved to Scotland a year ago. Now the school term has ended in Scotland so they have all decamped back down here for a spell, staying in their old house along with the cousins. They drove down on Sunday so I invited them all to come for dinner after their long drive. Turned out her husband couldn’t stay so after a short chat he left with his suitcase to go to a conference in Paris! No-one is sure when he will be back. Anyway we had a lovely evening together with Emilia and her five children, and then they all went ‘home’ and all was quiet again. Next day I got a call from Emilia in the afternoon asking if I had ten minutes to spare… Turned out she had needed to shop for food as the cupboards and fridge in the house were all bare (in her words) so she had gone to the supermarket only to end up at the checkout with £250-worth of groceries and to have her bank card declined. Luckily I had the car; I drove round there and paid for the shopping while Emilia gave the bank telephone helpline staff a good ear-bashing for their ‘security measures’ which was amusing to listen to! We all got home and she refunded me the money in cash which she had in the house but hadn’t taken with her. The snag now though is that most of it is in Scottish £20 notes, and many shops here won’t accept them as they are not familiar with the designs (there are two different types issued by different Scottish banks as well). So today when I go to town I will be going to the bank to change them into the more common ones. I wonder what will happen next? All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2026.