I Love to travel.  The further the better.  The call of the wild!  The more remote … bring it on.  The feeling of total liberation and at peace with myself, sitting on a deserted beach miles away from anywhere. Bliss.  Just me and my thoughts until I start wondering where the nearest loo is with its gleaming white seat.

So, as a traveller, I am a dismal failure.  There is nothing more I would love to do than spend the night under the stars, providing I have an en suite bathroom a few feet away from my memory foam mattress.

Call it a phobia, call it what you will but I find abluting on a long hall flight difficult to say the least.  That small, claustrophobic space which is invariably subject to a hideous amount of turbulence when I am in there.

Years ago we had a pit stop in Bahrain.  So went in search of a loo only to find a Hole in the tiles in which to pee, poo or miss completely like most people already seemed to have done. So I held it all in, not sure  I could do that now, between Bahrain and Malé (Maldives), making a mad dash from the aircraft to wash room in my brand new flip-flops; only to find myself ankle-deep in water as both loos had backed up.

On a road trip from Jersey to The Algarve and caught short on the motorway, we stopped at a convenience, which turned out to be another hole in the ground and the wind seemed to be coming at me from all angles.

Then, by way of a grand finale to this little tale of woe, a dream I started having when was about 17, which has literally become my worst recurring nightmare.  I am performing on the throne, in the privacy of my own bathroom when the curtain goes up to reveal an audience the size of the O2.

What a phobia.  What a poo. What would Freud think?

Filed under: Completely Nuts!, Expect the Unexpected, Humour Tagged: lavatorial humour, lavatorial phobias