Fiona Duff: Son's good clean fun at Hogmanay

If there is one thing in which I am lucky in life, it is having friends who like organising events. I'm just back from a few days way up north and west. In fact it involved a drive of more than four hours, but boy was it worth it when we got there.
Teenage parties can sometimes get out of hand. Picture: GettyTeenage parties can sometimes get out of hand. Picture: Getty
Teenage parties can sometimes get out of hand. Picture: Getty

There were about a dozen of us in a fantastic house and loads of delicious food and copious amounts of alcohol. Plenty of cups of tea as well, just in case you are worried about the state of my liver.

We went on lovely walks with our dogs and a couple of us even made it to the local village’s New Year’s Day ceilidh (and that’s another story in itself). The problem, however, with going away for a few days is that my son and his friends aren’t very good at organising anything much at all.

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The request to have some friends over for Hogmanay was asked, what with our home being an ‘empty’. We replied that it was fine if it was a gathering, but not if it was to be a party.

There is a very fine line between the two, but the young ’uns know exactly what is meant.

I phoned my son on New Year’s Day to wish him all the best for 2018 and ask about what may have been broken.

Last time he had friends over, his sister told me the only breakage had been his best friend’s heart when he saw his ex-girlfriend kiss another boy.

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He assured me that all was in place, asked about the whereabouts of a mop and said that two friends who had stayed over were helping get rid of any beer that hadn’t been drunk the previous evening. Such is the way of students I suppose.

Needless to say, it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I opened the door.

However, no smells of rancid beer, no sticky floor, no 21-year-old son and virtually no lavatory paper. Apart from a few wilting plants, all seemed to be fine.

Let’s hope that’s how it is for the rest of the year.