Granite city chick list

With his teenage daughter, Jason Cranwell has an offline epiphany in Aberdeenshire

-  NIGEL THOMPSON

When your holiday companion is a screen-dependent 13-year-old, a nature-inspired mini-break in the north-east of Scotland, with unpredictable weather and wi-fi, is a tough sell.

For me, the prospect of exploring rural and urban Aberdeenshire was a welcome opportunity to switch up our unadventurous lazing-by-the-pool getaway inclination. As for my daughter Amelia... well, let's just say the excess baggage as we set off was measured in adolescent apathy.

At Farm Stop in Portlethen, the opening excursion on our itinerary, the icebreakers hit different.

"Would you like a chicken on your head, sir?"

My first thought is that I'm about to become the unsuspecting victim of a TikTok trend, but not so. I was in fact being encouraged by farm staff to use my beanie-hatted head as a poultry resting place. Amelia found herself in an even more ridiculous pose after agreeing to get down on all fours to let one of the goats stand on her back. Seriously, they love it.

This is an unabashedly hands-on visitor experience. Piglets and ducks eagerly nibble a endless supply of treats from Amelia's cupped palms, before we take turns brushing the guinea pigs and petting the lambs, donkeys, rabbits, alpacas and mini Shetland ponies. I can tell Amelia's having way more fun than she expected as she doesn't once ask how much time is left in the hour-long slot.

Our tour group's walk to the exit echoes to the chitter-chatter of children league-tabling their favourite farm animals and dads enthusing about the ample free parking (OK, just me).

We travel seven miles north to Aberdeen, Scotland's third largest city, famed for its granite architecture and busy seaport, arriving at Aberdeen Science Centre.