Welcoming a new year in Edinburgh.
It was a week of heavy drinking, much hat wearing, weird sightseeing, some juggling and a huge street party. It was about as good a week you could ever ask for, and here i am depicting it with a shady memory and fully shadowed english, enjoy.
Day one - Saturday 28th, Our arrival.
It all started with a nice 7:30am call from Dave Jen and Paul, they arrived in lincolnshire looking fresh and demanding coffee. We travelled the 6 hours to Edinburgh, Paul doing most of the hard work, as he aimed for every piece of broken car he could find.
We arrived arrived at about 2pm, Immediatly unpacked the car (reads wine cellar) and began to settle in with a 'few' drinks.
We met Fion, who I think was known to all but myself, drank alot and discussed the options for the following days. After deciding on something based around Scotch Whisky we all passed out, at about 10:30.
The whole of day one...
Day two - Sunday 29th, I love it when a plan comes together.
Despite our best efforts, the planning of the previous day was not wiped from our minds. First things first though, after some bacon and coffee we visited the local shopping place to buy food and stuffs, champagne and gin springs to mind.
Stockpiles secured we all set off to find whiskey and gain knowledge. This was achieved through a magical tour, including a barrel ride and some free whiskey. Paul and myself are now proud members of the whiskey appriciation society. With whiskey in our viens we decided to hit the town that night.
Hitting The town proved to be a little less sucsessful, we were deemed by the skinny vodka bar bouncer that we had prepared a little too much for the night. This was however a good thing as back at the flat awaited a treasure hunt, the likes of which I had never before experienced.
Whisky tours and vodka crawls...
Day three - Monday 30th, The early bird gets eaten by Paul.
Another one of those planned during the drunken night before style days, we had decided to buy hats. The morning was early, I sleep less than most so got a bit of an early morning drinking headstart. Even though I waited until past 6 to wake the others, they still grumbled.
We wandered into town slowly, Paul appeared a little hung over. I have no idea why but we decided to climb the Scott Monument, a strange tall tower where dave taunted me and my lack of sobriety. Dave subsiquently got lost on the way back down, what goes around, comes around and Dave spent a long time going around.
That over with, we drank a little hot and minging mulled wine before choosing some fine hats of wizardary. The evening was set to challenge one of the great missions, as we had tickets for the 'City of the Dead' haunted graveyard tour. Unfortunatly no ghosts were around, probably forced away, by the power of the four wizards.
Read all about spooky day three...
Day four - Tuesday 31st, Today my friend is a good day to party.
New years eve or sould I say Hogmanay, I started things nice and early with coffee and bacon as usual. It was decided that morning, that the day should bring a hill walk with Helen. We walked up the hill.
At the top we left our mark and walked back down the hill, I believe it was some sort of making peace with nature thing before the future came but I'm unsure. Back at the flat Helen astounded Jen with her wine from water trick...
Dave did his best monkey in a hat impression...
Paul and I did our bit for gay pride...
And we played the Dave killing game, A devilishly complicated drinking game devised by Paul and myself based on the drink until you die or until there is no alcahol left technique We had all the alcahol, Dave died.
With Dave sucessfully slaughtered we set off for the street party, a place where no hat is too silly.
I happily posed with all whom I considered wacky enough for a photo, we drank a lot of whiskey, and we found a pink haired guy who had a bottle of iron bru.
The night ended with a spectacular firework show, all ignighted by one man and his explosive nipple. Drunkeness overtook us just a bit at this point, Paul and Jen found a taxi home as Jen's feet fell off, Fion escorted me back allong the apple buying route, Helen found a random chap and Dave just wandered off into the night only to arrive home half an hour after everyone else.
Every bit of new years eve as I remember it...
Day five - Wednesday 1st, The future is here gone is the past.
The morning brought with it the arrival of Roysterous, a large chicken footed blanket and baloon man, whom I claimed had been eating all the roysters, I detected frowned looks in my direction. After the night we just experienced it was felt that the future world of flying cars and detachable legs was all a bit too much. We decided instead to climb a big muddy hill, and to Daves delight I fell over.
Going up the hill was great, I bounced most of the way and attemped to hat everyone and everything. Paul was his usual hungover self while Dave and Jen tried to look sensible. Coming down I found to be terribly difficult, my shoes apear to excrete grease when descending. When we eventually did get back a large fryup was prepared, champagne consumed and a chilled night followed.
The detailed beginning of the future...
Day six - Thursday 2nd, To boldly view a pinapple
A day for which I have almost no photos. It consisted of some random driving, first we saw a big building shaped like a pinapple. Next we climbed a really steep hill to a tower, somthing to do with freedom it was claimed. When we were all suitably cold and miserable we returned to Edinburgh to drink chocolate and buy Paul an all seasons hat. The day ended with a large meal, and a very competitve game of monopoly.
All the sights we saw...
Day seven - Friday 3rd, The holiday is over.
Yes the last day, we departed quite early after Paul and I cleared the flat and messed up the street.
The only thing worthy of note was the fantastic scenery after the nights snowfall, the drive was very chilled, I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't done so much though.
Take a look at the Scottish scenery...