We visited Edinburgh at the weekend and spent a few grisly hours wandering round The Dark Lord’s idea of a wholesome family day out – the Surgeons’ Hall Museums.
As we looked at gangrenous body parts pickled in glass jars, flayed limbs and Napoleonic art of battle wounds, TDL said vaguely: “I’m thinking of studying medicine.”
“Well you’d have made a good 19th-century surgeon – refusing to accept even the most basic hygiene techniques or cleaning up your operating theatre,” I said, meanly.
“Ha, you’re funny,” she said, studiously ignoring me until it was time to buy her things in the gift shop.
I snorted at the thought of TDL training to be a doctor when she complains of “feeling drained” after just 20 minutes of science revision. “How will you feel after six years of revising only to end up going out on strike for a decent living wage?” I accurately pointed out.
“And anyway, had I’d known you were going to take such a keen interest in bodily functions, I’d have bought you chemistry sets and a play stethoscope rather than Mermaid Barbie and that vast collection of boggle-eyed Beanie Boos.”
As we walked around bickering, TDL took a particularly keen interest in the grave-robbing activities of Burke and Hare, the city’s famous murderers. “Yeah maybe I should specialise in dead people,” she said, thoughtfully. “At least I don’t have to talk to them.”
Even the museum’s gift shop was gory – TDL made me buy her a spine candlestick and stickers of internal organs to decorate her school books, but I drew the line at the pair of heart earrings. “Oh yes, nothing says love like a sterling silver cardiovascular system and pulmonary artery,” I drawled.
We were visiting my old pals, Alison and Gavin, who moved from the South to Edinburgh a few years ago and have only now acclimatised to the bone-chilling cold wind that whistles through the beautiful Scottish city.
The local lassies think nothing of going out in a pair of shorts on the Royal Mile, but even TDL, who hasn’t deliberately worn a coat since primary school, admitted she was freezing, and bought herself some fingerless mittens, which made her look even more like a Victorian waif.
We arrived on Friday night, two hours later than scheduled due to our butter-fingers driver misplacing a train packed full of 1,000 people waiting patiently for him in Newcastle.
When we finally arrived, Gavin suggested some teenage-friendly ideas for the weekend as it was TDL’s first visit to one of the UK’s most beautiful and culturally rich cities.
She nodded politely, ignored him, and asked for the nearest Dungeons & Dragons gaming shop.
Email me at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP.