Denise Allan Steele

When my two oldest children were in high school, they were excited about getting tickets to see

'The Red Hot Chili Peppers ' in Oakland , and I called the band 'The Red Hot Chili Peas.'

They thought that was hysterical.....

Then my youngest was going snow- boarding with her friend's family and I thought you lay down on a snowboard and wanted to get her a thick jacket ...

They thought that was hysterical too.

I was like ..'The Red Hot Chili Peas???!!!!! Snowboarding ???!!!!! When I was your age, we were lucky to go to the local 50p disco and get a 10p cone from the ice cream van....!!

I realised that every immigrant with American children, and in fact , every parent has these conversations , and I wanted to write a story about how simple and funny our lives were as teenagers in a small town in Scotland .

Karen is every teenage girl who dreams of something else !!