AROUND AND ABOUT EAST LOTHIAN
Thomas Hoskyns Leonard
Craigiehall Golf Club for a sumptuous bite,
Folk with airs and graces
And snotty smiles on their faces;
Duck's for an expensive drink and a fight;
So straight out of Aberlady in the Toyota, Lucinda
To escape Eilidh, Pips, and Belinda.
Gullane Beach was within easy reach
And Thomas stayed in the car devouring a peach.
Tide was in
And Scott chased a sea nymph in a spin,
She cocked a snoot,
So he shouted 'Hoot, hoot'
And ended up in the bin.
Dirleton was quaint,
Though Castle Inn needed some paint
And the big ginger barmaid was enough to make me wanna faint.
Traipsed 'round the ancient shrubberies
Getting up to childish skulduggerys,
And recalling historical murders and thuggerys.
Then back to car
'Cos Thomas wanted to drive afar
And I wanted to put the lizards into my jar.
Outside North Berwick almost hit Queen Anne's withering witch,
But Thomas switched gears with a twitch
And drove into barley farmstead
While the lights were still on red,
Hit a pothole,
Which sent us into a roll,
And plunged into a ditch.
In Seabird Centre, Scott bumped into an albatross,
Who turned out to be a rector from Kinross,
And I took a gawp at the gannets on Bass Rock,
And felt like joining the flock.
At Tantallon Castle,
We skipped paying, with no hassle,
And strode through curtain wall
Into an imaginary hall,
Only to encounter the Red Douglas ghost
Who was neighing, and salivating his most.
It chased us to the mighty cliff top
And attempted to dispatch us with a hefty whop,
But we fled back over the bridge to the dovecot
And hid like pigeons for a lonely hour in that spot.
Cutting back through Athelstaneford in a tizz,
We sought solace in the Scottish Saltire Centre, but gee whiz!
A very small dovecot marked that legendary spot
And we crawled through the tiniest of doors
Onto a gravelly dung scattered floor.
'This is where Hungus the Mungus
Defeated the Angles and Rectangles,'
An educated Pictish voice coolly announced.
'Here Hungus saw the Saltire in the sky in 832,
And made Prince Athelstan his lack of graciousness eternally rue.'
'Poppycock!" cried Thomas. "Go and sell the tourists Brighton Rock."
' 'Cos your History of Scotland smells like a Highlander's sock.'
' Away with ye!" yelled the voice behind the screen.
' Not even the Yanks say things quite so mean.
I feel like stabbing you in the spleen.'
So cross the Churchyard we in a goosy gaggle fled,
Wishing we were safely tucked into our feather beds,
There'pon we zoomed through Haidentoun of English Edgar's yore
Without buying royal hamburger for the poor,
Twixt plush Maitland and church within church,
Without trying the dumb pheasants to besmirch,
Cross paltry Tyne without a whine,
And on t'wards Gifford in yesteryear's parish
While Scott played the jester like a manically austere dervish.
And lo and behold! Hello Ma Maw!
We had reached the Goblin Ha',
There we drank with the locals and yokels
Till the bland joker sent us on our way,
And back to the Toyota we tottered and swayed,
"Let's cut to the West," cried Thomas, "for one last call,"
And we made it to the Flotterstone Inn in the Pentlands' thrall,
There I remembered our dinner with Cousin Cordelia,
And our forthright discussions with Ophelia.
" To the ultra-middle class English!" I sighed,
"If only I could with them again abide."
"Fuck you!" howled Thomas and Scott,
Scots to the core. What a bore!
"You can take the bus," screeched Scott,
And I only got home to Crescent Hopetoun after a tremendous fuss,
Where I felt ready to rot.
And now in the expanses of King Arthur's Lothian,
I wished I was a shapeshifting Carpathian,
Because in this ocean I'm only a dot.
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