Hamish McShanks

Hamish McShanks Secret Diary – w/e 17^th July 2005

‘Right were ready let’s hit the road’ I started walking towards the car but after a few steps I couldn’t help notice I seemed to be alone. I turned to face my passenger who was steadfastly refusing to budge ‘I’m not getting in that’, ‘what?’, ‘I’m not getting in that! People might see me’, ‘bu-‘, ‘you’ll have to disguise it’, ‘How? How the bloody hell am I supposed to disguise a fecking car?’ There was no reply, she had already stomped back into the house.

At this point I need to fill you in on a couple of details. A) I drive a Citroen Berlingo B) My friend Tansy thinks it looks like a courtesy vehicle for a special needs school. Up until now she had been content to malign it from afar. Now her chickens were well and truly coming home to roost. We had a wedding to attend and her car was out of action. We needed to take my ‘sunshine coach’ as she had christened it. Whilst I’ll admit it does have a passing resemblance to a mini bus or an ice cream van I like to think of it as an extremely spacious and reliable vehicle ….. and it was cheap …. ok ok so it looks like its missing half a dozen window lickers! Get off my back.

I was grumbling to myself when I heard the front door open and Tansy stepped out. She’d donned a pair of dark sunglasses and wrapped a silk scarf up around her head and over her face. ‘Bloody hell it’s Zsa Zsa Gabor’ I mumbled under my breath ‘What’s that?’, ‘Oh I was just saying let me get the door’ I replied as I theatrically opened the passenger door for her. Even with the sunglasses I was visibly wilting under her fearsome glare ‘I’ll eer uum eeeh start the car then’.

Once we had passed through the town and into open countryside she felt confident enough to remove the scarf but the sunglasses remained as did the icy atmosphere. My attempts to lighten the mood were met with a short shrift ‘So nice day for a wedding then’ stony silence ‘A castle that’s a nice place to marry isn’t it’ Glaciers were forming in the car but I foolishly pressed on ‘Do you think the weather will hold?’, ‘Ham’, ‘Yes’, ‘See this hatpin’ I gulped ‘Uuum yes’, ‘Good’

The remainder of the journey passed in an awkward silence. As instructed I parked behind a hedgerow a discreet distance from the castle, covered the car with branches and leaves and we walked the rest of the way.

The wedding guests were all milling around outside as we enjoyed a champagne reception. I say we when of course I mean Tansy enjoyed a champagne reception, I enjoyed a non alcoholic Elderflower cordial reception. Which much to my surprise was actually enjoyable. There was a light refreshing breeze as we basked in the warm summer sun. The good weather (or possibly the champagne) seemed to have rubbed off on Tans and she was in much better fettle only slapping me with an open hand when I tried to talk. A big improvement on the knuckleduster I can assure you.

After a few more rounds of Elderflower I was in need of a ‘comfort break’ and headed inside the castle. It was quite gloomy as my eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight outdoors. I scanned the room for any signs indicating where the little knights room might be but all I could see was a large mahogany desk in front of a substantial straight backed chair. A chair complete with an ancient yellow manikin dressed in period attire resting in a recumbant position, as if asleep.

I very nearly had my ‘break’ in the reception room when the manikin reached out and touched me ‘Can I help you dear?’, ‘fffffkin’ell’, ‘Are you looking for the tearoom?’, ‘Eeer no I was looking for the toilet actually’ I replied whilst sheepishly climbing off a suit of armour. She pointed me in the right direction and I thanked her profusely before heading off on the proffered route.

My navigation isn’t the best and I’m afraid I got a bit lost ‘Oh feck was it left after the great hall or after the long room?’ My bladder was sending shooting pains up to my abdomen indicating that I had little time left with which to choose ‘Oh feck’. There were two doors at the end of the corridor and I dived into the one on the left. For once my luck was actually in. It wasn’t the toilet I was looking for but it was a toilet. Ok so it was four hundred years old and a smidgen on the basic side but beggars’ cant be choosers.

I whipped of the wonderfully embossed history card on top and proceeded to deposit a couple of pints of elderflower cordial into the abyss ‘Ooooh thank god’. I took the opportunity to read all about sixteenth century sanitation and how basically everything that fell down this hole was deposited outside the castle. Apparently some of the more houseproud barons would get a poor person to shovel the solids elsewhere when the wiff got too much. The impoverished minion delighted to get such good work would of course be well made up ‘Gawd bless ya sir’, ‘I dreams of shovelling shit’, ‘I’m not fit to sniff you’re arse sir’ although he wasn’t going to have much choice as it happened.

After cursing the lack of hand washing facilities I carefully replaced the information card and the ‘DO NOT USE’ notice. Thankfully the castle was fairly empty and it was a moments work to slip out un-noticed. My return journey was a good deal quicker as I followed a convenient multi-coloured thread back downstairs. ‘That’s clever’ I thought wondering why I hadn’t seen it on my ascent.

Only when I reached the end of the thread did the penny drop. It was snagged on a vaguely familiar suit of armour in the main lobby ‘Oh no’ my head fell into my hands. When I eventually dared to peer through my fingers I could see I was now standing in a mini kilt. Mercifully my sporran was at the right height to cover my crown jewels but there was no point in denying it I was wearing a tartan pelmet. Things were not looking good, literally and metaphorically. ‘Ok Ham don’t panic’ I quickly ran over my options …….. ‘Ok Ham now you can panic’.

‘No no no no no she’s gonna kill me’ I wailed. Tansy had been looking forward to this wedding for months, she still hadn’t let me forget a works xmas ceileidh dinner ten years earlier where I had made a tactical error in getting totally rubbered at the bar rather than offering to dance. How was I going to break it to her that we had to leave!

As it happened I didn’t have to. Apparently the bride had been posing for some photographs on the grass outside the castle when she was drenched in piss!

Every cloud has an amber lining …..

Doei