MY DECISION to buy Ardvourlie Castle on Harris was almost forced on me. Having been in residence in this pad in Stornoway for more than five years, I was mortified to discover the windows and much else are now badly in need of cleaning.
If truth be told, I have always suspected that housework was never Mrs X’s strong point. The cobwebs, the dust and the sea of discarded Pot Noodle tubs in every room tell their own grim story.
She would shout down to me to make my own dinner and that she would make something for herself later on. That’s not normal – not every evening since we moved here? Rather than have any unpleasantness this close to Christmas, I have decided just to move.
I know what you’re thinking. Is a castle of seven bedrooms, four reception rooms and five bathrooms too much with a wife who is a stranger to Windolene? Ah, I have a cunning plan. I’ll send her out to work more so that we can afford to have someone in to do stuff for us.
There is bound to be some wee cailleach somewhere in the bustling metropolis that is Bowglass who will come in and work her socks off every day picking up after me and my compact little family for less than that awful, crippling minimum wage.
Can we afford a castle? The sellers say they want £695,000, but there is a recession and everyone has to be flexible and do a bit of bartering. Maybe if I offer less and tell them they can have the use of Mrs X any time they want . . . then again, maybe not.
So why Ardvourlie? Well, we know what the castle looks like inside. It featured often enough in the Gaelic soap Machair where the castle was the fictional Gaelic college Bradan Mor. I have been studying the repeats, so I know where every cushion and decanter is.
And Harris people are a fine lot. Especially the ones who did so fantastically well for the moustache-growing charity Movember, the annual push to raise awareness of men’s issues like prostate cancer.
I was over in Tarbert at their fundraising bash in the Hotel Hebrides on Saturday night and how quite so many decent, clean-living guys could be transformed in just a month to look like 1970s porn stars is a mystery.
Not that I have a clue what entertainers of that genre were like, you understand. Just something I was told by someone who was around then. I’m far too young myself, of course.
Iain Turnbull, that outspoken former brewer, was there, too. He had the right side of his not-inconsiderable beard shaved off. Poor Iain. He shivered so much on the way back to town that the car was wobbling like mad all the way through Balallan. But just on one side.
It was all good fun – just like the crew of the CalMac ferry Hebrides had when they danced their version of the old Madness classic House of Fun. These guys are genuinely talented.
Have you not seen it? I don’t know who the choreographer was, but to get a bunch of Jack Tars to move so gracefully and rhythmically as that must have taken some doing. Just go to YouTube and search for Heb Madness.
I would never give away my darling wife, of course, but one of our prominent stalwarts of the Free Church here on Lewis went over to Inverness last week and got in a right fluster over just that.
Let’s just call him Mr Macleod. That may or may not be his right name, but there are so many of the blighters with that name round these parts that I think I am safe enough.
Mr Macleod and his missus found lovely accommodation down near the river for their few days’ break and they had a splendid time, seeing the sights of Invershneggie, visiting relatives and, of course, shopping.
It was in a shop in the Eastgate Centre that one of the helpful assistants, chatting to a colleague, mentioned that someone had brought back an item of clothing and “the wifey” had asked for her money back. Mr Macleod overheard what she said with horror.
“Wifey?” he exclaimed, with a look of sheer horror on his face as a grim realisation descended on him.
“Wifey. She said wifey,” he shouted again, as scores of Marks & Sparks shoppers turned in awe at the commotion. His own alarmed wife thought Mr Macleod was having a turn and ushered him gently out. He was very excitable.
“Mary,” he thundered, “This is a terrible, terrible place. They call their women wifeys in Inverness. Did you know that, Mary? Did you? Tell me now.”
She supposed she did, but thought nothing of it. They also say “bread and butter”, she assured him. Every place was different.
“Aye, but there is a great moral decline here. Did you know that they give their women away for the amusement of others. Like in the hotel we’re staying in. That is why it’s so busy for November. Oh, Mary, it is a place of great iniquity. We are not staying there one more night, that’s for sure.”
Mrs Macleod was completely baffled and was dragged down the High Street and over the bridge by her irate husband, who said he would show her exactly what he was talking about.
As they went, he ranted on about the sinful Invernessians and how they were now betraying the sanctity of marriage for the mere titillation of others.
Arriving at the hotel, he roared with anger and ordered his mystified missus to lift her eyes to the hotel window and there she would see the proof of what the God-forsaken capital of the Highlands was now reduced to as they tried desperately to boost visitor numbers.
Mrs Macleod sighed as she saw the offending sign in the window. It said: “Residents may take advantage of our free wi-fi.”
