My family still live in Scotland although I have been far from the land of haggis, tartan and Irn Bru for some time now. Having said that, I am planning to visit them very soon now that my little girl is big enough to make the journey while causing enough scandal to make sure that the cabin crew need to give us free things to calm her down.
The question is; what gifts do I take over there. The best things here in South America are the crafts. The hats, ponchos and ornaments are pretty amazing but I have gifted these things to my family before and they appeared distinctly underwhelmed by then. So what can I get?
I bought a couple of electric heaters before winter started but never had to even get them out of the box. Winters here are pretty mild but in Scotland they are really cold. Would it seem like I was gloating if I gave them my unused heater? Probably.
One of my neighbours has some cute big puppies they want to give away. They are those wrinkled little fellows – Chow chow? – and pretty darn lovely. Maybe I could get a couple of large dog crates and ship them over on the plane? This is never going to happen though, is it? I am a serial worrier about airline luggage allowances and can’t even handle the stress of checking in a couple of grams more than the allowance never mind a couple of whopping big mutts.
Scots have a bad reputation for eating poorly. Our idea of a balanced meal is to wash down the deep fried candy floss with a litre of diet gunk. When I arrived here I couldn’t believe how many vegetables and how few cheesecakes people bought in the markets. Maybe I could help start a healthy eating revolution in the land of my birth by taking back some chicken recipes. There is picante de pollo and escabeche de pollo and not a single fried thing in sight.
One thing I can get fairly easily is the kind of low cost fake product which contains hilarious spelling mistakes and fall apart after two days. I once bought a Frank Sinatra CD (yes, I am that old and no I wouldn’t rather listen to Slim Shady or MC Hammer or whoever is popular these days) which proudly proclaimed that it included Stranglers in the Night on it. Anyway, I saw a Mickey Mouse duvet cover the other day which called everyone’s least favourite marketing ploy Mcikey Mouse. Sounds like a quality gift.
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