AWHH Children’s Writing Competition S 1-3 First Place
This hilrious entry from Brogan Dempster won first place in the S 1-3 age group of A Write Highland Hoolie’s Children’s Writing Competition!
My Highland Home
Brogan Dempster, S1
My Highland home is in Arisaig. Arisaig is a village. there isn’t much to write about Arisaig because it isn’t very interesting and I don’t really like it. I was going to try to find the best bits but I sat for an hour with a blank page……………..
So I chose the worst bits about living here.
First on my list of things that annoy me about living in Arisaig is the stags. Tourists stop at the side of the main road and take pictures of them ! They are like trees to me, I see them nearly every day, but trees don’t eat all your plants and do the toilet
on the football field and jump into cars causing crashes. They don’t even taste nice! The bottom line is I hate stags!
Driving: you need to drive everywhere; if you can’t drive you need to try to get a bus or a train BUT they only come at certain times: some days there are no buses or trains so that’s even harder to get to places. If you want to get nice food (food that is not out of date or going mouldy) then you need to go to Fort William. It is a pain to get clothes too – if you are a football addict like me then shopping online is the only possibility.
In Arisaig there is the playpark and the “the sheep field” AKA the football pitch. The playpark is toddler size, when I try to go on the climbing frame I get stuck as it is far too small. My daily entertainment is going to the pitch but there are more holes in
the football pitch than in the road to Fort William – and that is a lot. There is never anyone at the pitch because it is such a small population and not everybody likes the same thing, sometimes it is so bad that I need take my mum along to go in goals.
The summer does not really exist here it is rain (slightly heavy, heavy and very heavy) and wind (slightly windy, windy and very windy). The wind does have one positive – it keeps the midges away (we will hear more from them later). We have
four days of sunshine , all when I am in school – usually 2 in May and 2 in September.
Midges are dreadful little bugs that are always there to eat you alive. They fly around in swarms, landing on your skin then biting you – leaving itchy, red, lumps on your skin. If you scratch them they bleed and get infected and you need to put
cream on them – they are like the Scottish equivalent of mosquitos only worse!
I have tried lots of creams and sprays to try to keep them away,I have even tried rubbing plants on my skin – nothing worked, I just ended up looking like a swamp monster!
There are many things that I don’t like about the tourists. They are the worst part about living here: they can’t drive on our roads because our roads are so bendy; they cross the middle line, go super fast on the straight road then super slow on the
bends; they park in the middle of the road; and the worst thing is when they stick their phone out of the window when they are driving – probably trying to take a photograph of stags!
The steam train attracts the most tourists – when it arrives in Mallaig clusters of tourists stand in the middle of the road taking photos then walk in front of the cars in a daze. The beaches are another big attraction: the tourists park in the passing places but worst of all are the many coloured and makeshift tents which populate the beach and they careless dump their cans, food packets and leftover rubbish at the side of the road and on the beach.
So, that is why I don’t enjoy living in Arisaig. If you are planning to come to Arisaig think again but if you do come remember your football boots and meet me at the pitch!
