I know I say "pants" a lot, but although I only say it at home in real life, Will and Roe somehow caught onto it, and during our trip to Cambridge, they said it at least every ten words. So now I'm sick of pants. Or perhaps I'm a syco-pant? Whichever, tomorrow each time one of us says "pants" we have to give 5p to charity. Will and Roe were non-plussed, but I'm determined to get this pants word out of our vocabularies.

Before the Cambridge trip, two things. One, I got a credit in my Young Enterprise exam on 28 April. So did Smill and Helen Wo; everyone else passed. Two, there was discussion of school prefectship on the trip: apparently all the teachers have to choose people they want as school prefects. And today the headmaster asked if I'd say yes if I was made a school prefect. That probably means nothing, but at least he's bothering to ask, so . . . we'll see.

Here's the hour-by-hour guide to Zed's Adventures In Cambridge.

SUNDAY

10PM: Roe phones Zed, asking for details of the trip. Zed tells him they don't leave till 11.20am. Luckily, they do not discuss the Greek alphabet, as they did last telephone call.

MONDAY

8.40AM: Zed arrives at school. Smill says, "Mimph, you are not in uniform! I should have done that!" Zed panics: is Smill going to Cambridge? Noooooo! Her fears are in vain: Smill is going to Oxford instead.

9AM: Zed has Physics. The class watches the video of the Clean Room they visited on Friday. (A Clean Room being a room that is very clean; in order to get into it, you have to put on a suit in a manner such that not a particle of dirt is allowed into the clean room; this requires near-impossible gymnastic feats.) It is funny, since everyone looks like ghostly Teletubbies.

9.35AM: The second Physics lesson is not on. Zed attempts to do something productive, gives up and talks to Chris, who designs his'n'hers Teletubbies, which have the biological symbols for male and female on their heads.

10.10AM: Religion. Chris shows their teacher the improved Teletubbies. He is suitably bemused. Despite it being the last Religion lesson with him EVER (yes!) it is the boringest lesson of the entire year so Zed falls asleep.

10.45AM: Zed should have Maths, but Roe is not at school, so it's cancelled. (There are benefits to being in a class of two.) So she hangs around unproductively.

11AM: Marion arrives at school, two hours twenty minutes late.

11.20AM: Roe arrives at school, two hours forty minutes late. Zed, Roe, Alice, Katie and the head o sixth form set off in the school minibus.

3.15PM: They stop in Nottingham to visit the head o sixth form's parents. There are cakes and "how to make cakes" books all around the house.

3.45PM: They arrive at Nottingham University, having arranged to meet Will between 3.30 and 4.00. There is no sign of him.

4.12PM: Will emerges. They set off. They read a booklet Will has been given concerning Law at Nottingham. In the back are a list of the stupidest things lawyers have ever said. They include:

- How many children do you have?
- Three.
- How many are boys?
- None.
- How many are girls?

- Was it your brother or you that was killed in the war?

- Were you alone or by yourself?

- Was it male sperm?

- How was your marriage terminated?
- By death.
- Your death or your wife's?

- What did the person look like?
- He was tall and had a beard.
- Was the person male or female?

- How many times have you committed suicide?

7PM: Zed and co. arrive in Cambridge. They walk to King's College. Zed's fingers nearly fall off due to the weight of her bag. On arriving, they visit their rooms, have dinner, and wander round Cambridge, looking into other colleges. Roe desperately wants some playing cards and refuses to stop talking about them and pounces on all shops that look remotely open and / or as though they might sell cards. His search is fruitless (and cardless) and Zed and Will become thoroughly sick of hearing about playing cards. Roe tries without success to convince Zed that a cathedral is a mountain.

9PM: They get back to King's College. Zed, Will and Roe attempt to phone home. Will says, "Hi Mom! Oh, um, hello Dad, can I speak to Mom please?" Roe just talks nonsense. Zed cannot get through since her brother is on the Internet.

9.30PM: They sit in the smoky Junior Common Room with blood-coloured walls, and discuss prefectship and the like.

11PM: Alice and Katie go to bed.

11.30PM: The head o sixth form lights his third cigarette; Zed, Will and Roe go upstairs and sit in Will's room, talking, eating, saying pants, being mental and playing Consequences, the box game, and Truth Or Dare. Roe constantly makes Remarks and one Consequence comes out highly dodgy. (re: Zed and Will). The Consequences are filled with pants, and insults about Zed's Acorn t-shirt, which Roe refuses to stop complaining about. Zed tells him PC stands for pure c**p, which shuts him up momentarily.

TUESDAY

2.30AM: Zed, Will and Roe go to bed.

6.30AM: Zed wakes up for no apparent reason.

7.15AM: Mass bangings and crashings in corridor, waking Zed and Katie. Zed does not wear Acorn t-shirt, as she is going to meet a Computer Science lecturer.

8.15AM: The head o sixth form, Alicia and Katalia go downstairs for breakfast. Zed offers to wait for Will who says he's ready. (Will's geographical dyslexia is more acute than Zed's.)

8.35AM: Zed finally drags Will downstairs after failure to wake Roe.

9AM: Roe comes downstairs after being awakened by a maid. Zed phones home.

9.30AM: They explore King's College Chapel. It about ten times as big as the chapel at school, which is a reasonable size. The ceiling is incredible.

11AM: They are given a lecture by a King's student with an Elmo backpack.

11.30AM: They are supposed to talk to students from relevant departments. There is no computer geezer, so Zed attempts to listen to a Maths geezer, but misses every word he says.

12NOON: Zed and Roe speak to a computer geezer. He implies Maths, Further Maths and Physics are essential and everything else is a waste of time. Luckily Zed is taking all of the above.

12.45PM: Lunch.

2PM: Zed, Roe and Will talk to woman at Pembroke College. Will learns that for the course he wants (English & Classics degree, then Law degree) he must have A Level Latin or Greek. He lacks GCSE Latin and Greek, never mind A Levels.

2.30PM: Zed and Roe talk to woman at computer department. She is v. helpful and gives out syllabuses (syllabi?) and reading lists.

3PM: Return to the bus. Zed's bag is heavier than before, despite some of the contents having been eaten. Roe suggests air is more dense than food. Zed points out that food would float up to the ceiling if that was the case. Roe remains unconvinced.

3.20PM: Zed and Roe quickly explore Churchill College. Then they set off.

6PM: Arrival at Nottingham University. Alice and Katie are dropped off. Departure.

6.15PM: Stop at service station. Dinner. They phone home again. Departure.

10PM: Arrival back at school, on time to the minute, after dropping Roe off at a pub.

10.10PM: Will's father arrives.

10.15PM: Zed's mother arrives.

10.45PM: Zed gets home, and hides from penalty shoot out in England match. England lose. She goes on internet and goes to bed at midnight.

Thursday 2 July 1998

Um. The pa**s business. Roe and Smill said it once today, although Roe came out with several "pant- omime"s. Will said it twice, although he came out with several "pan- ther"s. But Zed? Yes, Zed said it a grand total of nine times. Gloops. Well, it just shows that "pants" is not just a word I say to annoy people, it's a deeply embedded part of my vocabulary. So there.

Friday 3 July 1998

Today Zed exchanged a one-layer, maroon tie with fairly close blue stripes for a two-layer, maroon tie with widely spaced blue-yellow-blue stripes and yellow school crests in between them.

In other words, she was made a school prefect.

Coolness!

Saturday 4 July 1998

Today, the first day of the summer holidays, is Smill's birthday. I tried to get her a card with a windmill on it - she calls herself Mill and she's full of wind - but no success.

Today I went to Hutton in the Forest to play in Concert Band. We sounded pants and got out of time on two pieces. The music kept blowing away, and in the middle of one piece, as there was a German Pause, some geen said, "Thank you Concert Band. And now for some maypole dancing." Charming!

Wednesday 15 July 1998

Last Friday, I finished my novel "Obsession". On Saturday I wrote Verbal Voodoo. On Sunday, I had no inspiration whatsoever, and decided to do something different, take a complete break from writing. So I made cakes with my mother, tidied my room, had a driving lesson, played the clarinet, dragged the snooker table out and played, and downloaded Hextris and Hatris (Tetris variants) from the Internet and played.

On Monday I had no inspiration either. So I updated my young writers' club, played snooker with Noj, played Hextris and Hatris and chatted to my online friend Flink.

On Tuesday I went to work at my parents' shop at 8.30am and got home at about 6.30pm, earning £27, maybe more if I get a pay-rise. (My cousin gets £3.50 an hour and I do just as much work as him for £3 an hour.) I went on the Internet, but Noj wanted on, so I played Hextris and Hatris and finally settled down to work on Verbal Voodoo II. I got quite a lot written too.

Today I updated my young writers' club all morning, played snooker with Noj, surfed the internet, talked to Roe on the phone, and finished "Verbal Voodoo II" and started Verbal Voodoo III. Noj discovered a way to send faxes over the Internet and an HTML-encoder, so I tested them out.

The only trouble with this "Verbal Voodoo" thing is that it contains real people, and I suspect their characterisations and fates will not be too their liking. I just hope the shame inflicted on myself in the story will compensate for their annoyance.

Saturday 18 July 1998

Today my provisional driving licence arrived! As of 11 August 1998 and up until 10 August 2051, I will be able to drive motor cars or light vans with up to 8 passenger seats and up to 3500kg and with a light trailer, agricultural tractors, road rollers, tracked vehicles, pedestrian controlled vehicles and mopeds. (Providing I have a driver age 21+ with me and L plates on the car.)

On the "Verbal Voodoo" front, The Aevil Wizard Rohan is not a happy camper. He likes being an aevil wizard, just not being married to Smill. Bwahaha!

Wednesday 22 July 1998

I am going on holiday to Oireland with my family! We leave on Sunday morning, drive to Stranraer (which is about a hundred miles away, on the west coast of Scotland), cross on the ferry, drive VERY VERY QUICKLY through Northern Ireland, reach Donegal (which is the most northern county in The Republic O Ireland), stay in a cottage for a week, go onto Mayo (in the west of The Republic O Ireland), stay in a cottage for a week, drive VERY VERY QUICKLY through Northern Ireland, return to Stranraer and drive home.

If you burgle my house while I'm gone, the fish will eat you.

Friday 24 July 1998

I was sitting at the shop, bored out of my mind, fiddling figures on invoives and alternately fiddling with the green rotating tetrahedra I made. Then I got a phone call. This is a rare thing in itself, but it was Noj, who said, "Beware! Chris, Roe and Will came here and I've sent them to the shop!" So I hid in the back office, holding onto the door handle. But as Chris was trying to open the door, there was suddenly an earth-shattering KABOOM. I tried to open the door. It didn't work. Oh Mykos, I've locked myself in, I thought.

Fortunately, I hadn't. Unfortunately, I couldn't hide any longer. So they offended me for a while, talked to my Dad, then left (I had to get back to work).

Which was not only a rare but unprecented occurrence. But it was a welcome break from invoices.

My grandad showed up at the shop as well, for no apparent reason, as is usual. He donated a packet of biscuits to the shop (don't ask why, but he does it regularly) and gave me £10 (holiday spending money) and a necklace and bracelet (again, no particular reason).

I looked at the packet they came in. And did a double take. 16 CARAT GOLD?

I worked in a daze. Who needs to work when you've got something so valuable? Where had these come from, why had he given them to me, how much were they worth?

Then my mum came back from the bank (or wherever she'd been.) "16 carat gold-plating," she read. "Probably some special offer on a cereal packet."

Why didn't I see the plating bit? And anyway, isn't that still quite valuable?

Anyway, work is over for me. Yoj! But the geezerbreaths are deducting National Insurance because I earned over £80 in a week or something! Hey! I didn't agree to work for a full week only to have my wages reduced! I asked my mother if she could pay my wages over two weeks - after all, I won't be working much more, but the scankwench said no, it's cheating! Gah!

Guess what else I've finished? It's a miracle - the Young Enterprise accounts!

Sunday 26 July 1998

Here I lie in a hospital in Belfast, bleeding profusely. I only got one glimpse of Ireland before I was shot. I fear I have but moments to live.

Ok, I'll stop being morbid and xenophobic. That didn't happen at all. Besides what if verbal voodoo happens? We're going back through Belfast and we'll have to WAIT there for the ferry to depart. Eek!

I woke up at 6am, we left the house forty five minutes later then travelled to Stranraer. The roads were dead quiet but we still met traffic at every junction. We reached our destination at about 9am and drove onto the ferry half an hour later. At ten o'clock, we were off.

When we parked the car on the ferry, we waited a few minutes before getting out. The windows kept getting steamed up, so I wiped mine. There was this little boy outside, who thought I was waving at him, so he waved back enthusiastically. Then, when we were sitting down, he found us again, and kept crawling in front of my splendid view of the choppy Irish sea. I have a fan!

In actual fact, we left Belfast as soon as we arrived there. And it was just like any city in England. I hadn't honestly expected anything else. The drive was fairly straight forwards. Long, but we didn't get lost until we actually reached Bundoran, which is where we are now.

We passed a weird circular building, which seemed to be a church. It didn't have any windows, and we assumed this was so that people didn't smash them. The next thing we passed was a window glass making place.

We also drove through this place called Belleek. I have to get leek-obsessed Will a postcard from there. Preferably depicting a supermarket.

Northern Ireland was just like mainland Britain, but Southern Ireland, aside the not exactly high temperature, could be anywhere else in Europe. The road signs are in two languages and the roads have yellow stripes beside them. Bundoran, well, can we say tourist ville? Every building is a B&B or a restaurant of some description. There was one place called Abrakebabra, which advertises itself as having "Magic food super service" or something. Outside the apartment complex where we're staying is a funfair and even with every window closed, you can still hear its annoying music.

The apartment complex: when we saw it on the outside, we thought, gosh, this looks nice. Inside it's a slightly different story. The corridors are about a foot wide. Our apartment is something I will never learn to navigate, even though there are only four rooms. There are two bedrooms with a double bed in both so Noj and I will have to take turns with the sofa bed. (Sorry to deny you of your incest fantasies there.) The living room / kitchen / dining room is more cramped than the worst case of PMS imaginable. And you can't sit on the toilet without the sink getting in the way.

Dad has acquired a mobile phone. He keeps phoning home to check if it's working. Luckily there has been no answer so far, but I'm worried the fish will be trying to get out of the tank in order to answer.

I have managed to drown out the sound of the funfair with Robbie Williams [apologies for my lack of taste - I have since seen the error of my ways]. Unfortunately, the television does not overcome the sound at all, and therefore, even when watching cricket (Noj had decided he likes it - heech!) you get um chucka um chucka um chucka over it.

We've just been for a walk in the town. The first building we passed was a pub. A bloke inside was playing the guitar. So Dad tried to drag Noj and I in. "Listen - music!" he exclaimed.

"Oh wow," said Noj, walking on. "Great."

"It's unbelievable," I agreed, falling into step with him. "I've never heard music before!"

We wandered up and down town, going into two crowded gift shops before returning. There were people people everywhere.

This is supposed to be the quiet west coast. On the chin. Let's hope this is just the Blackpool of County Donegal and the rest is nicer. This is a place no man can dwell, nor woman, nor dog, nor insect. It is for touristy tourists, and touristy tourists alone.

I know all I've done so far is complain. But it's better than Spain, which is where we went last year.

Reasons?

1. The people speak English. Sort of.
2. You can walk ten metres without being totally and utterly exhausted from the heat.
3. We have our familiar Landrover, instead of the Jeep from Beep. (The Jeep was meant to be soft-topped, but just like most of the women on the beach it was topless. Furthermore, it couldn't go up steep hills and was smaller than the Sindy car I used to own.
4. There are less mountains with silly twisting dirt tracks and sheer cliffs on both sides.

Monday 27 July 1998

This place is mental. We passed a sign that said, "Oily River" and another that said "for sale", attached to a pile of rubble.

Donegal The Town was the same as Bundoran, except bigger and with worse traffic. They don't go in for zebra crossings and traffic lights here, and I've never heard so many horns honking. The fact that the roads are less than two lanes wide doesn't help matters. The redeeming factor, which we visited on the way back to Bundoran, was the bookshop. A bookshop which is half filled with pottery and junk, but nevertheless, a pretty good bookshop. We also went into a music shop. Arg, will I ever escape from them? (My parents run one, and wherever we go on holiday, they insist on going into others to check out their competition.) Admittedly, Noj wanted some guitar strings, but still.

We then drove onto this place suggested by the Michelin Guide. But first, the roads. The best ones had hard shoulders now and again; the ok ones were two-lane but very bumpy. But the majority were one lane and surrounded by thick hedges on both sides. Did I say there were no pants mountain roads in Ireland? I was mistaken. These may be the only ones in this country, but within the first day of being here, Dad managed to find them.

Anyway, the guide suggested this silly little lane which contained a stone slab from the seventh century. But we couldn't find it. All we found were two miserable sheep, a lot of sheep excrement, and a graveyard filled with broken headstones. Yay.

We then drove on to the beach. You won't believe this, but I actually liked the beach. It was heauge and there were exactly three other people on it, sunbathing, despite the absence of sun. We went into the sea, The Atlantic Ocean (getting out of the car first), and graffitised the beach with "Anarchy in the Yukon: Smash The Sled" and equally silly messages.

We then drove into the aforementioned silly little mountain roads. We stopped at some cliffs. We set off at 11.15 and got back at 7pm.

This morning before setting off, we watched Teletubbies. It was freaky. The little kids were playing with green paint and stuff, and this weird music was on, and every now and again, the kids would say, "Gween gween gween gween gween, Gween Gween Gween, Gweeeeeeeen!"

Tuesday 28 July 1998

Today we went on a seven hour drive. Maybe we'll cut it down to six tomorrow, and by the end of the holiday we'll be going on negative drives to compensate.

We went to Ballyshannon in the hope of it being a better. Or, if that was asking too much, different. It wasn't. Dad declared that it was a place that sold nothing. I thought it was ok, really: less traffic, less crowds, and we found a PlayStation shop. But I don't think it's about to become my favourite town on earth either.

At the supermarket Mum asked if the supermarket type place had any plain crisps. She was handed cheese and onion flavour, and informed that this was plain, to the Irish. It's the national flavour or something. Mental.

We then drove on to Enniskillen, which was pretty funky actually. It was in Northern Ireland and it had traffic lights! Luxury! I bought "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: an Introduction" by J.D. Salinger. Then we went to Enniskillen Castle, which was fairly boring. Then came a long and mostly pointless drive in a forest, but it had a nice lake.

Wednesday 29 July 1998

We went for a walk along the coast today. A bit like Smill, it was nice, but windy. As we sat on a bench, we watched a dog which didn't seem to belong to anyone. It ate a teabag, then this black stick thing. We walked on and it seemed to attach itself to us. When we reached these cliffs, it stood at the edge, as if considering jumping, and we didn't see it again.

This afternoon we went to the Belleek pottery place. The pottery was wonderful, but who would buy it, I can't imagine. It was very expensive. And you had to get tickets to go on a guided tour of the place. You didn't get to see people actually making pottery, just displays and stuff. We went into Belleek, another silly little town. Oh well, I found a postcard for Will and a birthday card for my penpal Rebecca.

We then drove on to another graveyard. Eep. When we were in Germany, we went to cathedrals all the time, but I think graveyards are worse.

Then we went for a walk in the woods and found a ruined castle that was obscured by trees. We also found a lot of mud, of which I brought a sizeable proportion back to the apartment on my white trainers.

Thursday 30 July 1998

Today brought the car journey to end all car journeys. I wish. We set off at 9.30am, and got back at 8.30pm.

After driving through a scary Rohanic place - the river Roe, Roe Valley Cycles, Roe Hill Hotel - we reached the Heauge Person's Causeway. It was weird and interesting (if you're into geographical features), but it wasn't amazingly impressive. But I guess we saw it through the eyes of people who've been to the Alps.

Friday 31 July 1998

Guess where we went today? Yup, another graveyard. We saw W.B. Yeats' grave, and what a fascinating sight it was! Not! There was a message on the tombstone that said, "Cast a cold eye / On Life. On Death / Horsemen pass by." The meaning of which my ex-English teacher mother hadn't a clue about. My interpretation? "Well, if you don't take birth and death seriously, you miss out on all this stuff." Good think I'm not doing English anymore.

Then we went for a long drive through all these pants little places on silly little rubbish roads and it was all deeply thrilling.

[Ok, how childish was I?]