Gullane, Scotland

At School you spend every single day with your group of friends: you all go to the same parties, you all know the same people, you all shop at the same places (and so own all of the same clothes) and you probably even fancy all of the same boys. It will always be strange after living in each other’s pockets for years when you all leave school and go your separate ways: suddenly you don’t recognise all of your friend’s clothes; you don’t know all of the people she spends time with; and you don’t even know all of the boys that she likes. Sometimes all of these changes lead to people distancing themselves from their school friends; growing apart and finding new friends. I am very happy that this didn’t happen to my school friends and almost five years since we left school, we all still take every opportunity we can to get together.

In March, we had an opportunity just like this. We all grew up in Aberdeen, but now about half of us live in different cities. One of the girls has a family holiday home in a town just south of Edinburgh called Gullane so we decided just after Christmas that we should plan a weekend at her family’s house so that we could all catch up and explore somewhere different together. It was so nice to be able to get together with some of my oldest friends and just have a chilled weekend.

Deciding on a location like Gullane meant that the weekend could just be about all of us getting the chance to spend time together, rather than spending the time tramping all round a city, looking for the next event or next place to see. We didn’t do that much while we were away (we spent most of our time lounging around on a superbed that we had made out of five mattresses placed on the living room floor so that we could have a giant slumber party) but the trip really reminded me of the importance of taking time to relax and spend time with your loved ones.

I think that too often travel can become about counting off how many countries you have been to, how many great instagram pictures you’ve posted or how many exciting activities you have taken part in when in reality, you don’t have to go far to take some time out and relax and get a new perspective on everything that is going on. Most of us were less than 2 hours away from our houses and yet that amount of distance allowed us to focus on catching up with each other and discussing all of our plans for the next few months, and even beyond that.

It’s so nice to know that no matter where our lives take us, we will always have each other to meet up every so often to climb a hill, eat too much food and play Cards Against Humanity in front of the fire.