Party-time doesn't always suit the young.

Sarah Zillwood recalls her bookish younger self being out of kilter with family festivities, and regretting the fact from an adult perspective. Her piece comes from '10,' the tenth anniversary anthology of Crichton Writers, a group of former students from the creative writing course run by the poet Tom Pow at Glasgow University's Dumfries Campus.

POLAROID CIRCA 1980

The room glitters with tinsel,

there's a tilting tree, weighed down

by mum's exuberance

and a table swallowed by food.

My brother seems to be telling a joke,

and Nan laughs at Grandad, tickling

one small cousin, while the others pirouette

around my dad, who's dancing

in a yellow paper cracker hat.

And I'm there, scowling

in the corner, guarding an avalanche

of new books, checking my watch,

counting wasted minutes,

too young to know,

that parties always end

too soon.