Story Notes

Pat and Mo have known each other since they were girls in Glasgow. The shipyards are long gone, the marriages are behind them, the kids have left home, and the houses have started to feel too quiet and too big. So when the chance comes to take a proper holiday, just the two of them, they don’t think twice. They pack the old Capri and head north on Scotland’s most famous coastal route, with a glovebox full of house rules and every intention of finally enjoying themselves.

Most people drive the North Coast 500 for the scenery and the history. Pat and Mo have other ideas about what makes a place worth stopping for, and a fortnight of laybys, manky car parks, and spectacularly unsuccessful encounters with the men of the Highlands does nothing to dent their determination. The car runs hot. The midges are merciless. The men, to a man, decline. None of it bothers them as much as it should, because the further north they get, the more the trip stops being about what they said they came for.

Underneath the bravado and the bad behaviour, this is a book about friendship that has lasted forty years, about ageing and the strange relief of no longer being looked at, and about the quiet question of who keeps the lights on in a house that used to be full. By the time they reach the top of the country and turn for home, Pat and Mo have found something they weren’t looking for, something that was sitting in the passenger seat the whole way round.

Funny, filthy, and unexpectedly tender, Alternative Places of Interest is a story about two women, one temperamental Ford Capri, and the discovery that the thing worth keeping is rarely the thing you set out to find.

Summary

Pat and Mo have been best pals since Glasgow still had shipyards, Saturday jobs paid cash, and nobody worried about cholesterol. Forty years on, the kids have grown and gone, the houses have got quiet, and the two of them have decided it’s finally time to take a holiday entirely on their own terms. Armed with a beautifully restored Ford Capri, questionable navigation, and an increasingly creative definition of “places worth visiting,” they head north on Scotland’s most spectacular driving route. Their guidebook lists castles and viewpoints. Pat and Mo are more interested in the places that never made the brochure. Not every attraction gets a brown sign. Some are marked in pink. House rules are house rules, and the finest discoveries have always required a small detour. But somewhere between the laybys and the lighthouses, the top of the country and the long road home, the two of them start to wonder whether the thing they came looking for was ever going to be found in a car park at all.

Genre: Humor/Drama

Author: K.S. McCrae

Status: Complete

Chapters: 18

Rating: n/a

Age Rating: 18+

Pat & Mo’s Handy Guide to What the Fuck We’re Talking About

Right. We’ve been told some of you might not have a clue what we’re saying half the time.

Apparently no everybody’s from Glasgow. Can’t be helped.

So here’s a list.

If you think you’re getting on fine, away you go, move on, don’t bother your arse reading it. It’s no compulsory.

But if you’re sat there wondering what a numpty is, or why everyone keeps telling each other to bile their heids, it’s all down here.

Don’t say we never do anything for you.

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away and bile yer heid (phrase) — Go away. Get lost. An instruction to remove oneself, with feeling. Literally “away and boil your head.”

baws (noun) — Testicles. Also useful as a general expression of disappointment, as in “aw, baws.”

bevvy (noun) — An alcoholic drink. A “bevvy” is one. “On the bevvy” is several.

clatty (adjective) — Dirty. Like manky, but usually applied to a person or their habits rather than a place or an object. A clatty man is a specific and well-understood category.

crabbit (adjective) — Bad-tempered. Grumpy. In a permanent state of mild complaint. Can be applied to people, weather, and, if required, cars.

dead (adverb) — Very. An intensifier. “Dead funny.” “Dead nice.” Nothing to do with being deceased.

dinnae (verb) — Do not. Don’t.

dout (noun) — A cigarette end. The stub. What you nip and keep in the packet for later if you’re Mo.

fud (noun) — A woman’s genitals. Occasionally a person you don’t think much of.

gie him a suck (phrase) — To perform oral sex on a man.

girnin (verb) — Complaining. Whining. Moaning on and on in a low, fretful, self-pitying way. Most commonly applied to weans who’ve been told no. Occasionally to a thirty-nine-year-old car that thinks it’s been hard done by.

greetin (verb) — Crying. Also complaining, depending on the volume and the tears involved.

hen (noun) — A term of endearment for a woman. Similar to “love” or “darling.” Used constantly and meaning everything from genuine affection to a warning.

lick her oot (phrase) — To perform oral sex on a woman.

manky (adjective) — Dirty, in a strong and unpleasant way. Used for poor hygiene or generally unclean conditions. A manky layby. A manky fella. You’ll know one when you see one.

numpty (noun) — An idiot. A fool. Affectionate or otherwise depending on who’s saying it and how recently you’ve annoyed them. “Ya numpty” is the full deployment.

ride (verb / noun) — To have sexual intercourse. As a noun, a person considered worth having it with.

shag (verb) — To have sexual intercourse. Not, in this context, a type of dance or a seabird.

skean dhu (noun) — (pronounced “skee-an doo”) A small traditional Highland dagger, worn tucked in the sock with a kilt.

spunk (noun) — Semen.

teuchter (noun) — (pronounced “tyooch-ter,” with the “ch” as in “loch”) A Highlander or someone from the rural north, as labelled by a Lowlander. Rarely a compliment. Frequently undeserved.

twat / twatt (noun) — A fool, an idiot, or a woman’s genitals, depending. Note the place on Orkney is spelt with two Ts, which is either a coincidence or somebody’s idea of a joke.

wabbit (adjective) — (pronounced “wab-it”) Worn out. Exhausted. Run down. Past it, in the most tired and worn-thin sense. Said of a person after a long day, or a car after a long country.

wean (noun) — (pronounced “wain”) A child. Literally “wee one.” The thing you spend twenty years raising and the rest of your life missing.

wee (adjective) — Small. Little. Also used to soften almost anything: a wee drink, a wee word, a wee guide to what the fuck we’re talking about.