I have been reading a lot this holiday. And it always means that I find words that aren’t used so often and, because I live here, I never use now.

One of these was charabanc (pronounced shar – uh – bang), meaning coach or bus, usually for tourists and often used for day trips. An old, English word, little used nowadays. A rather splendid word, I think.

The second was a Scottish word, dreich (pronounced dreek) meaning dreary and dark, applied to the weather (we wouldn’t really use it so much here anyway). It does, in my mind summon up a rather damp and miserable day.