Nangle Natters: Highland fling

They (being The Rolling Stones) say that you can’t always get what you want. The trick is to work out exactly what it is that you want right now, and bring in a plan. I like plans.

I have just come back from a rare weekend in Scotland. I had a plan. My plan was to bring back a delicious meal of haggis, neeps and tatties – on the train – so that my weekend could come to a tasty tasty close in Brighton with one of my favourite meals ever. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

My primary reason for heading up North was to attend a dear friend’s wedding and to celebrate their nuptials. No one dances like a band of inebriated men in kilts. And you know it’s a very personalised wedding when the figures on the top of the cake are Warhammer models made tenderly by the groom the night before. It was a glorious time.

No one dances like a band of inebriated men in kilts

However, I had a secondary agenda once I knew that I was going to be in Edinburgh: to make my way to my favourite restaurant and convince them my takeaway needs could be met before my train left Waverley Station at 11.43. To have haggis. I got disproportionately excited at the prospect. Well, you’ve got to take your happies where you can.

My plan was to get up at 9am, shower, tidy the flat I’d borrowed, pack, take the bus into town, hotfoot it up to Mum’s Comfort Food (great restaurant name), and hope they’d extend the doggy bag policy I’d benefited from last year to a full meal’s worth. Then, get back to the station without getting lost, picking up presents of shortcake and tablet en route. It’s a tight ask.

In case you were wondering, I got into my flat in Brighton at 9pm that evening and feasted on my haggis joyfully. I love it when a plan comes together.