Let me tell you about a trip I did with my mum and my brother, in the summer of 2001.

I was 17, my brother was 12 and my dad had died in January of that year. I think it’s fair to say we were all a little bit insane during that year. I don’t remember the logic behind it, or whether I put up a fight at being dragged away from my friends during the summer holidays. All I remember is that my mum announced that we were going to go on an adventure, driving up through the Highlands. We were going to plan nothing, she announced breezily. We would drive, see where we ended up, go for some walks and eat/sleep wherever we happened to find somewhere suitable.

I cannot emphasise enough how out of character this was. This is absolutely the kind of thing my dad would have done, and absolutely the last thing I would have expected from my mum.

Anyway, we set off after a few days staying with family in Glasgow, and drove. We went, as far as I can remember, not quite up to John o’Groats (perhaps we were all sick of each other by then, who knows).

I do remember Glencoe, for a couple of reasons. It remains one of the most breathtaking views I’ve ever visited. It’s a vast, unearthly place where you feel utterly tiny, vulnerable and awed. A cathartic place for a grieving teenager as it turns out. One of my clearest memories of that trip is walking off away from my family and stopping to look up. I took a breath that felt like the first real, deep breath I had taken in months. Grief crumples you up, I think, like a scrap of paper. It’s hard to breathe when you’re constantly balled into a fist.

Image: Matthew Feeney via Unsplash

If you’re not familiar with Glencoe, there is one thing, apart from the dramatic scenery, for which it is known, and that is the Glencoe massacre - otherwise known as the inspiration behind the infamous Red Wedding scene in Game of Thrones. There is a lot of complex history behind the story (you can read more about it here) but for the sake of this story, what you need to know is that those murdered were from clan Macdonald, and those who carried out the massacre were from the rival Campbell clan.

Stay with me, this is relevant for reasons that will become clear.

Anyway, that evening was the first one on the trip where we really struggled to find somewhere to stay. The beauty of the area makes it popular with hikers and tourists, so our ‘rock up and find a room’ approach was turning out to be trickier than expected. Eventually, we pulled up at a sort of shabbily grand looking building, all dark wood and crimson. Yes, they had two rooms free. Their last two rooms, in fact. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

“All our rooms are named after Scottish clans,” the man at reception explained proudly. “Here are your room keys. You’re sleeping tonight in Mackenzie and Macdonald.”

“Absolutely not,” my mum responded, aghast.

The man behind the counter was understandably perturbed. “They are very nice rooms Madam, would you like to perhaps see…”

My mum leaned closer over the counter. “I cannot stay in the Macdonald room,” she hissed. “My mother was a -” at this point she glanced behind her at an unassuming French couple who were patiently waiting in the queue behind us and lowered her voice further - “a Campbell.”

The man behind the counter had absolutely no idea what was going on and very clearly thought my mum was completely mad. “Is your mother here?” he asked uncertainly.

My mum looked like she might throw the visitor’s book at him. “Are there no other rooms? Any at all?”

There were not. By this point it was about 10pm and I just wanted to go to bed. I tried to explain that I couldn’t care less what the room was called and I would happily take the room my mum clearly had an issue with.

“I mean, what do you think is going to happen? That we’ll be haunted by some vengeful ghost?”

My brother found this funny. My mum did not, because this was apparently exactly what she thought would happen.

By midnight we were all squashed into the Mackenzie room, my brother on the sofa and me in the world’s smallest double bed with my mum. The very confused man at reception had offered my mum a complimentary glass of whisky to apologise for ‘the inconvenience’, which she had accepted imperiously and drunk in one mouthful before retiring somewhat dramatically to our small, but crucially not haunted room.

My other enduring memory of that trip was another place we stayed which, if my brother didn’t also remember it in equally clear detail, I would be sure I had hallucinated. I have no idea where it was, I think that it was north of Glencoe but south of Fort William. We had been driving for a while and hadn’t come across anywhere at all to stay. Food wasn’t a problem as we had a seemingly endless supply of sandwiches, but it was getting to a point where it was seriously looking like we might all sleep in the car.

Out of nowhere, the headlights hit a small sign in the hedge that said ‘B&B 1 mile’, pointing off down a tiny road barely wide enough for the car. We wound back and forth, then eventually came to a little house surrounded by tall trees. Mum rang the bell, a lady opened the door, welcomed us in and showed us to our rooms. We all slept.

In the morning, we appeared and followed the corridor down to where we had been told to come for breakfast. A few other people were sat around a big wooden table, tucking into what remains one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had in my life. Endless eggs, bacon, sausages.. Fresh bread and scones with homemade jam. It was incredible. But this isn’t why I remember this place so clearly. The entire kitchen - and this was a big room - was full, in every corner, on every shelf, with owls. Not china owls or even stuffed owls. Real actual owls.

For a disconcertingly long time, no one mentioned the owls. I am not talking about a couple here, I am talking about 20 or 30 owls. A lot of them were asleep. Several stared down at us unblinkingly. Occasionally one would flap or hop along the shelf. They didn’t appear to be trapped, there was a large open window at the top of the room and people came in and out, often leaving the door open. Other people around the table chatted about the amazing walks they had done in the area, how they came back and stayed here every year.

Eventually, my mum had had enough. “What’s with the owls?” she asked, when the lady came out to offer us more bacon. “Oh, they just live here,” she responded, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “More toast with that bacon?”

I have googled the hell out of this over the years, and I’ve never found any evidence of this place’s existence. Perhaps it was some kind of mad mutual dream. Perhaps it only exists for one night every few hundred years. I like to think it’s still out there, the owners still exactly the same age, the breakfast still as delicious, the owls still just hanging out, doing their owl thing, just living there.

When my mum died, it was down to me and my brother, a pair of largely impractical, broke 20-somethings to handle her affairs. On one occasion I was on hold for almost an hour to a phone company who shall remain nameless, attempting to cancel her broadband contract.

‘I can’t authorise anything without speaking to the account holder,’ the woman on the other end of the line repeated, when I tried to explain the situation. ‘I mean, you can’t speak to her, she’s dead’ I responded for the fourth time, shrugging helplessly at my brother. “When will she be back?’ the woman asked chirpily. ‘She is dead’ I repeated helplessly.

‘When will she be back?’ the woman parroted back. ‘The thing is, we can’t make any changes without speaking to the account holder. So when she’s back, just get her to give us a little call?’ By this point my brother was laughing so much he had to leave the room. ‘Ok I’ll pass that on,’ I eventually managed. We’re probably still paying for that fucking broadband.

Grief is weird.

When my mum died, she was 60 and I was 28. You would have thought I’d know what I was doing - not my first rodeo and all that. I spent my teenage years steeling myself for grief, building up my armour as my dad got weaker and weaker and we became more and more accustomed to hospital waiting rooms, senses increasingly dulled by the wail of sirens.

I was 16 when he died, and all that preparation did precisely fuck all. Turns out, erasing a foundation stone from your life is monumental and crushing, regardless of how many years you’ve spent running through the scenario in your head, rehearsing every moment. I never would have guessed that when it happened, that thing I had spent years practising for, that it would bring me closer to my mum and further away from my brother. I could never have prepared myself for the way it made me fearless, but not the good kind of fearless. I wasn’t prepared for how cruel it made me. I could never have guessed the elite teenage status that comes with tragedy. I would have laughed if you had told me it would be death that finally made me popular.

But there you are. Second time around, I really should have been ready. There were no years of warning when my mum died, no dress rehearsal. Still, I had been through it all before, I knew what to expect. No such luck, because grief shapeshifted again. This time, I weaponised it. Make a joke. Make it funny so no one feels sorry for you. Get to them before they can get to you. I used to be a stripper and both my parents are dead, I would quip to people trying to make small talk at parties. Those are the only interesting things about me.

After my mum died, after we had dealt with the funeral directors and their inexplicable enthusiasm for upselling the weird giant pringles tubes that hold ashes (how about this one? It has a picture of a mountain and a wolf on it?) I attempted to sort out her stuff. There’s a lot of sadness in a job like that; sprinkles of joy; a few awkward moments.

I turned on her laptop, at first to check for unpaid bills or other urgent emails, but got distracted by a document on her desktop titled ‘Bucket List’. Of everything I trawled through in those grim, dark months, this was probably the hardest. Mum had retired less than a year earlier, after a working life that had taken her from actress to primary school teacher, via a few detours. She had sold the London home we grew up in and relocated to Sussex, to a little place that was all hers, with a view of the lake from the kitchen window. Mum had always wanted to live near water.

This was the start of the next chapter, and she had plans. Plans to travel, to be creative, to go a bit mad sometimes. Plans to be selfish. And my God she fucking deserved it. The list also gave me a few precious glimpses into not just the person she was, but also the person she wanted to be.

‘Join local group - not a book club, remember you hate them’, said one entry. ‘Submit a poem for publication’ was something I knew would be a big step for her, a hugely talented creative constantly blighted by self-doubt. ‘Have a dinner party with just canapes’ was just pure her - minimal effort, maximum fun. She would have hated the preparation, worried about it for a week beforehand, decided she didn’t actually want to see anyone and almost cancelled several times, and then, when it came to it, she would have had a brilliant night.

I’ve kept that list for over ten years. It’s been in the background as I had my own kids, got divorced, fell in love again. It’s watched me do a million things, many of them very stupid, and every now and then it feels like it’s burning a hole in my pocket.

So this year, I’m taking it out and I’m opening it. Some of the things on the list are big - trips, creative projects. Some of them are small, but important. I’m going to work through it, month by month and I hope that when 2027 rolls in, I’ll have worked my way through most, if not all of them. My way of saying thanks, I guess, to the woman who raised me. My way of trying to put down the cynicism and perhaps even develop some small talk around something other than sex and death.

So this is here to hold me accountable. A place to talk about the things I’ve ticked off the list and also muse about life, love, grief and everything in between without having to parcel it into a neat little bow, with a hook and a headline like I do in my day job. Call it a bad noughties Tumblr, but with more death. If that sells it to you, you’re definitely my people.

Thanks for joining me.

Substacks I like (and maybe you’ll like too)...

On The Way Life Feels

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The Future Hunter

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Big Feelings

Beautifully written musings on life, grief and everything else. One of the few emails I always open as soon as it lands in my inbox.

Things That Don’t Suck

The incredible Andrea Gibson needs no introduction, and her substack, now run by her wife Megan, is a beautiful, life-affirming space.

We Can’t Do It Alone

Witty, inspiring and always thought-provoking insights from a ‘recovering hyper-independent.’

Hype Yourself

Invaluable advice, support and community for the self-employed among us.

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