A trip to Mecca

Day 26

It is true what they say about getting used to smells – I awoke in the morning having acclimatized myself to the stench of man-funk. That being said, I still awoke early and had to have a shower straight away.

Post-shower, I headed downstairs and caught up with Charlie, the girl that had checked me in the day before (I only just remembered her name now).

I asked her where a good place to grab some breakfast and a morning coffee was, and as I had also taken stock of my socks and jocks levels (or lack thereof) I sought information on where I could get some clean underderfs. Charlie told me where I could find the nearest Primark, a store infamous in the UK for low-cost clothing. Primark is the Australian equivalent of Best-Buy, only with a much bigger floor plan.

I trundled down to Primark and picked up a few clean pairs of undies and socks, and then did something that I had been trying to avoid – I slummed it and had McDonalds for breakfast. While I was there I changed socks (as I had had no clean pairs that morning).

After grabbing some alleged food, I set out on foot for my major destination of the day. I walked past Nottingham castle which looked like a nice sturdy building from the outside, and following the directions I had been given I found the canal at the southern end of Nottingham. It was a beautiful day, and a lovely walk along the canal.

There were lots of river boats moored along the banks, and a number of people out for walks or just sitting along the edge of the canal.

After about a half hour of walking along the canal, I found the street that I needed to turn onto. A short walk and I saw a building rising above the others which let me know that I had arrived at Warhammer World.

Warhammer World is the HQ of Games Workshop, where all of the game-design boffins, model sculptors, model foundry and model gallery is located. I had a massive smile on my face when I saw a full-size Space Marine standing on top of a pedestal out the front of the building.

Warhammer World isn’t a theme-park (it’s certainly not Wally World) – it is more of a Mecca for anybody that plays with war-dollies or has worked for Games Workshop. Something that all of those in the aforementioned category say “One day, I will go there.”

I followed the signs to the carpark and where the entrance was located.

I had an excited giggle when I saw a life-size Rhino APC parked in the carpark.

I gave a hoot of joy when I saw the entrance to Bugman’s Bar.

And I had a little bit of lower movement when I saw the 8 foot by 6 foot display of Tyranids assaulting a Spacewolves fortification in the window.

And all of this before even entering the building.

Once I passed through the doors, I was greeted by a statue of Lurtz from the Lord of the Rings, and a Chaos Space Marine standing beside him.

As the late great Big Kev used to say: I was excited.

I wandered upstairs to find another life-size Space Marine statue, walked past the model gallery (which I knew I would spend lots of time in later on) and into a massive gaming hall. There would have been at least 60 tables all set up for people to bring their armies along and play a game on.

They had a store as well at the side of the gaming area, which as stores go was pretty much stock standard, although given that the forge for model casting was located on site, you could order models that weren’t available in-store, as well as the resin kits from Forgeworld. Oooooooh. A hobbyists wet dream.

Particularly given that the exchange rate was so good that buying models in the UK was about half the price of what we pay in Australian stores.

I was assisted by a very helpful young fella called Nick, who took my order and told me that the extra bibs and bobs that I was picking up for some friends would be available in a couple of hours time.

I decided to take this opportunity to peruse the gallery of models. These models had been painted up by Games Workshop’s expert painting team, ‘Eavy Metal. The pictures of the models that you see in the army books make them look exquisite, but when you saw them in the flesh they were truly amazing. I spent 2 hours walking around the gallery, and I think I took more photos in this one spot than I almost did on the whole rest of the trip.

I decided to wander over to Bugman’s Bar after this to grab a couple of pints and post a few photos for my jealous friends back home.

Bugman’s Bar had a whole heap of paraphernalia on the walls – trophies from battles, an Orc’s head on the wall, as well as an extremely large map of the Old World.

Post pints, I headed back to the store where my order was making its way back to the store for me. I wandered around for a couple of minutes, grabbed my order when it arrived, and decided to make my way back into town.

I took another lovely stroll along the canal, where many people were out and about enjoying the sunshine, and picked up my train ticket for the next day to Manchester.

I stopped off at Tescos on my way back to the hostel, where I picked up a massive bag of (pea)nuts and a couple of bottles of cider. It was about 6pm when I got back to the hostel, and I spent the evening catching up on my blog, drinking the ciders and having a lovely dinner of (pea)nuts.

I had a relatively early night, very happy that I had finally made it to wargamer’s Mecca, another thing to cross off the bucket list.

Safe travels through Sherwood Forest

Day 25

I arose in the morning, fortunately not sporting too much of a hangover, all prepared for my trip from Edinburgh to Nottingham.

Now, some of you might say “Nottingham? What would take you to Nottingham?”

Well, that is for the next blog entry.

Unfortunately, there had been a family staying in the room that kept on getting up throughout the night, slamming the door on their way out and not caring about how much noise they made. I referred to them in my head as the Swiss Family Robinson, as I believe they were Scandinavian or German and there were just so god damn many of them.

I had some breakfast, and caught up with Jes, who was a little bit the worse for wear after drinks the night before.

We had a very nice breakfast and final chat before I had to depart. I grabbed my bags and checked out of the hostel, sorry to see Edinburgh go.

I dragged my bags over to the train station and hung around, trying to figure out what platform I needed to head to. Unfortunately, the screens didn’t say, so I had to go and ask directions from the fellow in the information booth, who it seemed was being asked the same question over and over, although he handled it with a lot of patience.

Finally I established what platform I needed to head to and jumped on the train. I knew that it was going to be an lengthy train trip, so I had my laptop and note book at hand and caught up on a couple of blog entries.

I do understand the irony of this as I have now been back from my trip for 7-8 weeks and am writing this blog entry on the train.

The train trip was uneventful. It took about 6 hours too get to the point where I needed to change trains, where I caught a taxi to the next train station, and jumped onto the new train.

I continued my blog entries for another 2 hours, when I arrived in Nottingham.

I had looked at the maps for where I needed to head to from the train station, but saw that it was a decent trek (with a bag) so I got a taxi to the hostel I had booked into.

Now, being a completely new town, I thought I was giving the taxi driver the correct address, although it turned out that I had said “Street” instead of “Road”.

We were driving up a main road when I saw the hostel that I staying at, and drove past.

I told the taxi driver that we had gone past where we needed to go, and he told me off for the incorrect street/road issue I highlighted before.

He pulled a mad U-turn in front of traffic, and dropped me off on the side of the road about 100 metres from where I needed to go to.

I checked into the hostel, where I was greeted by a lass with a slight accent who showed me around. She was very friendly and helpful, and agreed that the room that I was staying in had a decided “man-funk” to it.

I headed down to the common room after dropping off my bag, and discovered that I was probably one of the few native English speaking people staying there. It was only a small hostel, and I discovered that most of the people staying there were international students doing a summer course at the university of Nottingham, which was at the end of the street that the hostel was located on.

I touched base with the hostel staff and asked about a good place to go and grab a bite to eat. I was pointed in the direction of the pub that was across the road, as they apparently had some very tasty pies on their menu.

I trundled across the road, looking forward to a tasty pie and a beverage or two before getting an early night.

Oh, how I should have know that this would not be the case.

The pub had sold out of their trademark pies, so I ended up grabbing a burger instead. I picked up a pint and headed up to the rooftop area.

I was drinking in peace when a couple of locals came up with drinks.

We engaged in some small talk, at which point the invited me across to join them once I had finished my meal, which I did.

Tom, Loz and Matt (yes, all guys) were Nottingham locals, and had been having a few beverages throughout the afternoon, but were still going strong. We had a good couple of drinks, several of them local brews suggested by the boys. I won’t go into details of what we spoke about, as many of these topics aren’t fit for blog entry, but we were joined later on by a young chap with a guitar, who was practicing for the open mic night that the pub was running.

We threw out a few requests, some of which he was able to play, but we enjoyed listening to him just play his guitar and warm up. I firmly believe that music for music’s sake is underrated in today’s society.

Once the open mic night started, we headed down to provide support for the chap that had entertained us with his music.

We had a number of drinks while listening to some good music.

Loz was a smoker, but had one of those electric cigarettes that you put liquid in of various flavours and ‘smoke’ that.

The great thing about these electric cigarettes is that you can smoke them inside since they’re not really ‘smoking a cigarette’.

I sampled several other local brews that the boys suggested, and resisted their urgings to head out and keep on partying.

I called it a night about 1am and headed back to the hostel to get a good night’s sleep in preparation of what had brought me to Nottingham:

Warhammer World.

Last gasp of Edinburgh

Day 24

Urgh. After a dismal night’s sleep I awoke definitely the worse for wear at about 7am. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up and had a shower while the girls still slumbered in their double bed. I had trialed it the evening before and it was definitely uncomfortable, but a damn sight better than sleeping on the hardwood floor.

About 100 metres up the road was a Tescos with a coffee shop in it. I had aspirations of grabbing a coffee and attempting to sort myself out, so I took one of the door swipey dongles and let myself out of the complex.

Unfortunately it was a Sunday, and Tesco doesn’t open until 9am on a Sunday.

For a brief fleeting moment I considered telling Edinburgh where to go and cracking the poos, but I had loved this city over the last couple of days and was willing to put my grumpyness down to a poor night’s sleep, lack of coffee and the nuffy-induced ridiculously high-pitched smoke alarm.

I faffed around on the free wifi for the student accommodation for a little bit, before heading back upstairs to join the girls shortly after 9am.

Sparkles had already showered, and Shakira was just about to take care of her morning ablutions when I returned. Sparkles fixed me a bowl of cereal, because I was quite obviously not able to take care of myself. J

Post breakfast I packed my bags and prepared myself for the arduous walk back across the city – this time uphill – to the Caledonian backpackers hostel that I had stayed at two nights earlier. The girls had to ‘check out’ by 10, as they were required to change rooms. They offered for me to stay another night with them, again on the floor, but I declined and allowed them their privacy.

Plus, I was looking forward to sleeping in a bed again.

Sparkles declared that she wanted to go to the Foodies festival again, and despite having the conversation twice I declined the opportunity.

We agreed to meet up later that afternoon to grab a bite to eat, as this was to be my final night in Edinburgh, and maybe go and see a show at the Edinburgh festival.

So, bag in hand (well, handle for dragging said bag at least) I headed back to the Caledonia.

Edinburgh has a magnificent skyline, both because it is built along a ridgeline, and also because those buildings along the ridgeline are exquisite. Walking past Queen’s park I could look south down one street and see a massive cathedral, then along the next street see several statues, then along another seeing Edinburgh castle. It is definitely one of the most beautiful cities I have been to.

I arrived back at the Caledonia about 10.45, and since I wasn’t able to check in until midday, I dropped my bag off in the bag-room and headed out to find a coffee.

There was a café across the street, which had a phenomenal view of Edinburgh castle and a couple of cathedrals as well. This part of the road was shaped like a horseshoe – I believe it used to be a 5 ways, but a large portion of the intersection was blocked off due to tram-works for the light rail system they are putting in (which has apparently been on the go for at least 3 years) and also for the excess foot traffic due to the multitude of events going on during the Edinburgh festival.

After placing my coffee order I sat on an outside table and watched life pass me by as I updated my journal notes. After 10 minutes my coffee hadn’t arrived. 20 minutes went past, and still no coffee. 25 minutes passed, and I thought to myself “this had better be the best damn coffee ever!”

It hit 30 minutes since ordering my coffee when I politely asked one of the waitresses that came out to clean up the table next to me about my caffeine-delivery-system beverage. She apologized profusely about the drink not coming out, and sought to rectify it straight away.

2 minutes later my coffee came out. And it was a pretty bloody good coffee, I must say.

I leisurely finished my latte (no, not sitting there like a wanker with my little finger extended) and trundled over to the Caledonian to have a cigarette and check in.

And who should I spy out the front of the hostel? Jes.

She had obviously returned home safely the night before. Apparently she had bought so much salami at the Foodies festival that she ended up giving some to the taxi driver.

No, that’s not a euphemism.

Jes had to move rooms in the hostel (as accommodation in Edinburgh is extremely hard to get) and also had to go through the check-in process, and since the sun had come out, we opted to go and grab a drink since it had hit midday.

We headed back to the café I had just left, but unfortunately they don’t start serving alcohol until 12.30. The girl behind the bar apologized for the liquor licensing laws in Edinburgh and blamed religion.

Jes and I grabbed an orange juice and discussed these laws. We came to the conclusion that church would start at 9 and finish at 12 on Sundays, so that would allow people half an hour to say their goodbyes to the congregation and make their way to the pub.

Another good thing about Sundays in Edinburgh pubs is that they all do Sunday Roast meals.

Jes and I checked into our rooms and spent a bit of time on the computers – me to book my onwards train ticket for tomorrow, and Jes… well, I didn’t enquire.

I was too busy trying to make the Westpac online credit card verification system work, and then swearing profusely at inanimate objects when there was no action.

Jes and I went for a wander with the intention of me picking up my train ticket in person, but got waylaid when she declared that Sparkles’ hunt for pork crackling the previous day had inspired her. We hit up several venues, but none of them were serving pork roast or crackling. Eventually a restaurant was decided upon, where she ordered lamb shanks and I ordered a massive burger with all of the extras. It was fantastic!

Jes and I had a great chat over lunch, talking about where we came from and the events that made us the people that we are today.

It was starting to get rather nippy, so I walked Jes back to the hostel and prepared myself for my final evening in Edinburgh.

I received a message from the girls, and told them where we should meet later on in the evening. Which could have ended in disaster – I will explain shortly.

Given that I was heading to Nottingham the next day, when I left the hostel to meet up with Sparkles and Shakira, I stopped off at the train station to purchase my ticket. It was a bit of a rabbit warren, as they were doing construction works at the station. I managed to find the ticket office and purchased my ticket, fortunately able to get the pre-book discount as a normal ticket would have cost me twice as much. Urk.

I departed the train station to meet up with the girls. From the map I had, I had chosen an intersection that was on the way to where a number of the Edinburgh Comedy festival shows were on. What the map did not show was that one of the roads crossed over the other… 100 metres up in the air. The main north-south road was elevated above the other, and when I arrived I was unsure whether the girls would meet me up top, or if they would be waiting down below.

Fortunately I didn’t have long to wait, as the girls were already there about 20 metres up the road (on the other side of the ‘intersection’) and we headed onwards to find somewhere to eat dinner.

We found a restaurant, somewhat akin to a Hard Rock café, and the girls got mighty excited when they saw that there were 2 for 1 cocktails. They leaped into the drinks with gusto, but we had to wait a while until our food orders were taken. It got mighty hot and stuffy  in the corner of the room that we were in, and when our orders came the table behind us claimed two of the meals, as they had ordered the same as us… although after us.

We ate our meals while looking over what the Edinburgh festival had on offer for us. I had lined up the Chopper Read show for myself, but the girls were unsure what show they wanted to see. We wandered down to the ticket office and all got our tickets – the girls went and saw the Rembrandts (who sang the theme song for Friends), while I got my ticket for Chopper.

There was a drinking area nearby set up for the Festival attendees, marked by a large (very large) blow-up cow. I took a photo of the two girls in front of the cow, and showed them the photo, making the comment “Look – three cows”.

I almost got slapped for that one.

The time for my show to begin came around all too quickly, and the three of us realized that this was the last time we would see each other before arriving back home. We had a group hug, and I apologized for my cow comment, and headed off to see Uncle Chop-Chop.

I waited in the queue for a couple of minutes before we were let into the auditorium. The show was being held at one of the Edinburgh universities, in a lecture theatre, which was kind of cool.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Chopper character, there is an Aussie comedian called Heath Franklin who does an impersonation of the infamous Australian vigilante, Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read. It is more of a caricature, but it is bloody hilarious. Now, I had been to a Chopper show before, but as I was the only Aussie in the audience I was also the only one who knew what to expect.

Well, the title of the show was “A Hard Bastard’s Guide to Life” so people should have had a bit of an idea of what was coming.

At the start of the show, Chopper’s little helper announced that Chopper was on his way, and asked people to not walk across the stage if they had to leave mid-show.

Fortunately, nobody walked across the stage to leave the auditorium, but there was a couple that arrived late who had not heard this announcement.

The fella walked in first and headed up the stairs to walk around the stage, but his lady friend decided to walk across the stage while Chopper was in mid joke.

I think he was about as stunned as everybody else when the lady shook his hand and introduced herself as she passed him, but I learned a very important lesson that night. A) never walk across a comedian’s stage mid-show, and b) never walk across CHOPPER’S stage while he is in mid-performance.

For the rest of the show, he made as much fun of the lady as he could, subtly at first then becoming more and more blatant. I hope that everybody took as much enjoyment out of it as I did.

One of the things that Heath Franklin does at the end of his Chopper shows is a read through of a script from the tv show that he would like to make – Chopper Towers.

This was fantastic. He pulled up a German guy to be an Aussie, and make motor cycle noises, which sounded more like what a child would make. Hehe.

He also pulled up a New Zealand girl to be the Aussie girlfriend of the Deadshit Aussie (played by the German guy). He also got the lady up that walked across his stage to play Tanya – his girlfriend who is (in his own words) a bit of an alright, but let’s face it, at the end of the day she’s still a prostitute.

After the show I grabbed a beer and hung around outside the auditorium. Heath headed out, looking about rather nervously. As he passed me, I said “Good show tonight mate.” He thanked me, then stopped, and turned back and said “Ah, you’re the Aussie that was in the crowd.”

We chatted for a couple of minutes, where he told me about how pissed off he was at the lady walking across his stage. I informed him that the lady was sitting about 10 metres behind him, which did cut the conversation short, although I had the chance to tell him about a little gem that I had heard.

In his show, Chopper spoke about removing the warning labels from things and letting nature sort itself out.

I told him about the warnings on chainsaws in the US. “Do not attempt to stop blades with hands or genitals.”

He thanked me and told me that I should receive a writing credit for that little piece of wisdom.

Unfortunately, I have no idea about whether he used that in his shows from that night onwards.

After having a quick chat with Heath, I trundled back to the hostel, where I found Jes at the bar. She had had a couple by that stage, and was talking with a random girl that was friends with one of the bar staff.

We had a few drinks together, and then I called it a night and made sure that she got off to bed safely before I made my way to bed myself.

Such a fantastic final day in Edinburgh.

The Amazing Edinburgh Foodies Festival

Day 23

Wow – last night escalated quickly! I was feeling a little bit shabby after last night’s absinthe drinking, and was ready to murder a coffee and some toast to help line the stomach.

I saw Jes as I was heading back to my room to pack my bags, and we discussed what we were thinking of doing during the day. I mentioned the Foodies Festival that we had been told about earlier the previous night, and that I had to check out of the hostel and was going to stay at the accommodation of the two girls.
Jes said she might come along to the Foodies Festival, depending on how she was feeling later on.

After packing my bags and checking out, I started the trek over to where Sparkles and Shakira were staying. My accommodation was on the western side of Edinburgh, and they were staying to the north east. It took me about 45 minutes to walk there, dragging my wheeled suitcase (trundle bag), and I swore that I would not do another trip with this bag.

The girls were staying in university student accommodation, and when I entered it looked like quite a nice building. They had a studio apartment there, which had a fridge, microwave, stove and large bench space. It also had a very hard wood floor, which I was going to be sleeping on that night.
They were just finishing getting ready and wolfing down some breakfast as I arrived. Sparkles took me down and showed me how to use the internet in the building, but it was an extremely frustrating experience. You had to log in, and then it only allowed you to use the wi-fi for 2 minutes. At which point you had to log in again.
Fortunately my phone remembered the password, so it was a simple affair. Sparkles’ iPad didn’t remember passwords, so she had to keep on typing in the log in and pass word.

I looked up on google maps how to get to the Foodies Festival, and it turned out that the park where it was located was at this end of the city – we had originally feared that it might be to the south east of the city.
It took us about 15 minutes to walk to the park, and once again the weather was spectacular.

The Foodies Festival was a place that small and large companies could set up stalls and provide samples of their wares as well as sell them. There were a number of alcohol stalls, cheese stalls, salami stalls, cooking additive stalls… it was quite a large affair.
When we arrived we kept an eye out for Lisa and Caroline around the champagne stand, but could not see them. We decided to go for a wander and see what was there, and then go back to the champagne stand.
I saw a food stall that was cooking up steaks and burgers from cows that the company bred. I decided that even though I had had some breakfast at the hostel, that was what I wanted to take care of my hangover.

The girls stayed at the champagne stand when we got back there, and I toddled back to get a steak burger with all the extras and an egg and bacon roll from the same place.
As I was standing in the queue for food, Jes walked past and we saw each other at the same point in time. She stuck with me until I got my food, and then we went back to meet Shakira and Sparkles. I introduced Jes to the other girls as the one from the previous night that had attempted to poison me with absinthe the night before.
Jes and I grabbed a Magners cider from the nearby Magners stand, and Sparkles and Shakira headed off to find a cider of their own.
They returned with some ‘natural’ ciders – I’m not quite sure how the brewing process differs from the Magners one, but I must say I did prefer my Magners Mixed Berry cider. Mmmmmmm.

The 4 of us sat on the grass and chatted, lounging around in the sun, heading back to the Magners stand for more (and more) ciders.
Sparkles and Shakira went off for a wander to look at the foods, and shortly afterwards Jes and I did as well. Jes was trying all of the samples, the cheeses, meats, crackers, etcetera etcetera. She ended up buying three wheels of cheese and a bag full of salamis. Afterwards she was kicking herself over buying so many salamis, as she really only wanted one.

Jes and I met up with Shakira and Sparkles, and after grabbing a few more ciders, we sat down near a stage area and listened to a couple of bands play. These bands were all performing in one of the Edinburgh festivals (there are about 10 running at the same time, so August is a super busy time in Edinburgh… hence why I was sleeping on the floor tonight).


The first group that we saw were dressed in bohemian style clothing, played covers and looked like they thoroughly enjoyed their music. They had an excellent drummer. They had a double bass. And they had a guy that played the saxophone and some kind of breath-driven keyboard. Very funky and fun.

The second group… well, guy… was a solo guitarist who started off recording some vocal and guitar tracks before breaking into his set. He started off slowly, but built a lot of goodwill from the crowd as he went on, and had everybody clapping along to his songs by the end. Shakira ended up buying one of his CDs, which I intend to ‘acquire by nefarious methods’.

It was getting on to 7pm by this stage, and the Foodies Festival was winding up by this stage. Jes and I headed over to try to pick up a take-away 3 pack of the tasty Magners ciders, but we had left our run too late and they had already packed up for the day.
So, our quartet decided to head back to Sparkles and Shakira’s accommodation via Tesco for a light repast of Foodies cheese and salami, biscuits, peanuts and popcorn. And gin. Lots of gin.

We ate and drank and chatted for a couple of hours, telling stories from our travels and home, and decided to call it a night about 11pm.
I walked Jes up to the end of the road where she caught a taxi, before rejoining Sparkles and Shakira. We had one more drink, before deciding to call it a night.

As the room only had a double bed, I had to sleep on the floor. The hard-wood floor. On a towel. With no blanket. Definitely not the most comfortable of places to sleep.
Plus, for some reason one of the other occupants of the building decided that it would be a good idea to smoke in their room.
So at 12.30am we were woken by a truly high-pitched and aurally invading smoke alarm which went on for ages.
We panicked for a moment, as I was not supposed to be staying there, and started to head out to the emergency evacuation point, but fortunately the alarm stopped while we were in the hallway of the building. We heard somebody explaining what was going on, and quickly headed back to the room before anybody noticed that the girls had snuck a boy into their room.
We attempted to go to sleep again, but were woken up at 1.30am by the smoke alarm going off again. Fortunately this time it only went off for about a minute.
And again at 2am.
I can’t believe those lazy shits didn’t learn their lesson the first time and couldn’t be bothered walking outside to have their smoke.
Sigh.

Absinthe and the return to Edinburgh

Day 22

With the Highland Lass heading out to the airport at stupid o’clock, Sparkles, Shakira and I decided to head back to Edinburgh.
Doris and the Highland Lass’s sisters were sad to see us go, and despite the offer of being able to stay a little bit longer, we didn’t want to intrude on their hospitality.

We had left overs from yesterday’s breakfast for today’s breakfast, and it was just as tasty the second time around.
Doris packed lunches for us from the left overs of the previous night’s dinner, and even wrote our names on them. I felt like I was heading off to school for the first time again.

Colin was nice enough to drive us out to the bus terminal. His belief was that since his bosses were away on holidays, and he tells people that his middle initial, ‘D’, stands for delegation he could justify rocking up to work late.
He pointed to an article in the newspaper regarding the redevelopment of an old park in Aberdeen. This park has some massive beautiful trees that were planted many moons ago by the original town planners, and the redevelopment is a bit of a contentious issue in Aberdeen. The population of Aberdeen went to a referendum on the matter and voted for the new park, but a recently elected mayor has said that he is against it and will fight the issue. The newspaper article spoke about 100 business leaders that were behind the project (of which Colin is one), and described how they were going to dig up the narrow park which lies next to a train line and a major motorway, and build a new park over the top of the train line and road, making it much larger with several centers for ants, and less of an attraction for the local heroin addicts.

At the bus terminal, we bought our bus tickets and waited for 30 minutes until our bus arrived. There was some confusion about whether this was our bus, as the original bus had broken down and they were running two slightly different services.
Fortunately it was our bus, and we jumped on, taking up the 3 middle seats in the back row. I had the middle seat, so I was able to stretch my legs out along the aisle.
Shakira sat next to an older man who looked like a Scottish version of Jack Thompson, and they chatted for most of the trip.
He was heading back home after visiting a folk music festival, and told her all about the country side that we drove through and a few things to look out for in Edinburgh.
Sparkles and I broke out our lunches, and although she tried to give me the one belonging to “Brie”, which was filled with cheese, I insisted that I have my one. The dinner left overs were still extremely tasty.

The bus arrived in Edinburgh shortly after 2pm, and the girls had booked accommodation in another area of the city to where I was staying. After a few initial navigational issues, the girls got to a bus stop that would take them to their accommodation, and I headed on to mine, the Caledonia Hostel.
This was a very sweet venue, and a great place to stay for the one night that I intended to stay before moving on into northern England.
The girls and I had agreed to meet at the pub that we had gone to on our last day in Edinburgh, the Bee Hive, and meet up at 5pm.
I knew that this was probably an unachievable timeframe for the girls, particularly since Shakira spoke of having a tactical snooze before meeting up.

I took this opportunity to head down to the post office and send a few things back to Australia so that I wouldn’t have to carry them around any longer.
Post post-office, I headed to the Bee Hive to see if the girls had arrived by 5.30. They hadn’t (as I was pretty sure would be the case), so I decided to make a mad dash to the local Games Workshop store to pick up their monthly magazine.

Edinburgh was really pumping at this time of the day, and I had to weave and wind my way through the masses of people along the major road that the GW store was located on. There were tourists milling around, performers trying to spruke their shows, and lots of people handing out fliers.
I had a very determined look on my face (let’s just say that I don’t tolerate very well large masses of people that mill around like herds of stupid animals), so the flyer people would turn to me and offer me a flyer, and then turn away once they looked at my face.
They probably just thought that I was a local.

I grabbed my magazine and (as quickly as was possible with the sea of stupidity I had to make my way through) headed back to the Bee Hive.
I ran into Sparkles as I was walking through to the beer garden, and she apologized profusely for her and Shakira not being there at 5pm like they had agreed.
I explained that I had been, gone and come back, which made her feel a little less guilty.
We decided to grab a few drinks before joining Shakira in the beer garden, but there was a long queue at the downstairs bar.
She jumped in this queue, and I headed upstairs to the other bar to grab a few drinks, hoping that one of us would be much quicker than the other.
There was still a decent wait at the top bar, but I picked up 3 ciders for us and headed back down to find Sparkles at the front of the queue. She decided to grab another 3 drinks anyway to save us another trip to the bar.

I wandered out and joined Shakira at the table in the beer garden, which we were sharing with two local girls who were having their own conversation. Sparkles rejoined us, and we decided to have some grub there as we were quite impressed with it last time we ate there.
After deciding on our fare, I offered to go inside to order and grab another couple of drinks. The two girls sitting at the table with us were also running low on their drinks, so I asked them if they wanted me to pick up some drinks for them while I was up. They were greatly appreciative and gave me an order, joining our conversation at the table.
Their names were easy to remember – Caroline and Lisa, the same as two of the Highland Lass’s sisters.
We chatted for a couple of hours, at which point Caroline had to leave to catch up with an ex-boyfriend (a long and complicated situation), so the three of us and Lisa headed upstairs to see a couple of local comedians perform at the Bee Hive.

The comedians were quite good. The first guy basically paid out the English and spoke about the woes of having them as a neighboring country. The second comedian was a young girl from Glasgow, who told quite a few dirty jokes, but has a bit of promise for a future in comedy. The third comedian started off saying that he was going to do an improvisational comedy show revolving around a question and answer session. I was a bit skeptical at first, but he turned out to be the funniest of the comedians. I missed the fourth comedian as I was stuck at the bar waiting for them to change the Magners keg downstairs.
We had one final drink after the show, and then Lisa departed to meet up with one of her friends.

The girls and I opted to stick around and have another couple of drinks, as this had originally been my final night in Edinburgh before moving on, but I quite enjoyed the place and a Foodies festival that Lisa and Caroline had recommended sounded quite good.
At the bar there was a barmaid that I had seen the last time we were there that I thought was pretty cute. After getting the first round and seeing her, I opted to go and get the second round, slipping her a note with my number on it..
Unfortunately I never heard from her.
Sigh.

We called it a night and headed back to our relevant sleeping abodes. At the Caledonian I wrote up another couple of blog entries and had a few more beers. I decided to call it a night and head downstairs for one more cigarette.
While I was down there a group of 6 (3*guys, 3*girls) spilled out of the bar next to the Caledonian. One of the guys in a local accent asked if he could roll a cigarette, and I proffered my rollie paraphernalia. When they heard me speak, the three girls turned around and exclaimed “ANOTHER AUSSIE!” They were all Aussies from Queensland.
One of the girls turned to me and said “We’re going to go to the park and drink some absinthe – wanna come join us?”
“Sure, if there’s absinthe going, I won’t say no” I replied.

We trundled around the corner to a park and grabbed out several cups, a bottle of absinthe, an absinthe spoon and some sugar. The girl with the bottle of absinthe, Jes, was very friendly and we chatted a fair bit about our travels and life in general. The other two girls were twins, and I think they were trying to line up two of the other boys to take them home.
After a couple of glasses (not shots) of absinthe, one of the guys got up told one of the other fellows to get up. The other guy, Jordan, had passed out and refused to move. The third fellow, an Irishman called (appropriately) Patty each grabbed an arm and carried Jordan to the street, where one of the twins and the first fellow had waved down a taxi. This twin jumped in the taxi with Jordan and the local fellow, and they headed off into the night.
This left Jes, the other twin, Patty and myself.
We each had another glass of absinthe, and Patty and the remaining twin started to get a little bit friendly. Jes and I asked him if he had any condoms – after all, us Aussies need to look out for each other! He declared that he didn’t, but he was a gentleman and so wouldn’t try to hit a home run.
Safe with that self-commendation, Jes and I wandered back to the Caledonian, where she was also staying.

We unsteadily headed off to bed at about 2.30am.

Yet another 21st birthday for the Highland Lass.

Day 21

Today was one of the reasons why we had come to Scotland – the ACTUAL birthday for the Highland Lass.

I was up early (I had gotten into the habit of waking up early – not through choice), so I took Lexie out for a tactical, and enjoyed the morning air.
All 5 of the girls arose a little bit later (Caroline, who was too young to join us the night before, also got up early for breakky), and feeling a bit better than I for their longer sleep.
Bacon and eggs had been bought for breaking our fast, but since I was there I decided to take charge and couldn’t leave it as a simple repast.
I cooked up some onions, capsicums and tomatoes to go with what would have been a simple breakfast. Everybody was quite appreciative of the extra bibs and bobs… particularly Shakira, as she doesn’t eat the dirty swine.

We didn’t finish our breakfast until after midday, so we had a small window of opportunity to check out Aberdeen before the Highland Lass’s grandparents came over to celebrate her actual birthday.

Given that there were 7 of us, we took 2 cars and headed out to Aberdeen beach. There is a beautiful boulevard there, where you can look out over the bay and see all of the oil ships coming in and out of the harbor. Aberdeen has always been a wealthy city, but with the discovery of oil offshore, it has become a much wealthier city.
Sparkles, Shakira, Lisa and I headed out in one car, and Lisa gave us a running tour as we drove through the city.
A lot of large, lordly manors were built in the past, which are now too big to remain as single residences. Most of them have been converted into offices, which look very schmick. Imagine going to see your accountant in building with the exterior of an18th century manor house, and then reclining in comfort while they do your taxes.
Very nice.

There is also an area of Aberdeen called Footdee, which was once the location of houses for the people who worked on ships. These are quite small single room dwellings – when I say small, the door frames are only about 5 and a half feet tall.

We wandered for about an hour, meeting up with the other car load of girls, until Lisa had to take the Highland Lass’s mother’s car back. Shakira opted to change cars so that she could get herself an icecream, and Lisa took Sparkles and myself back.

Doris headed out to go and pick up her mother, while Lisa, Sparkles and I had a shower and then started to get some things ready for dinner. The other carload of girls arrived about half an hour after my car returned and they all had another shower in preparation for the birthday feast that was being prepared.

Doris returned with her mother, and Colin came back with his parents as well. We started off the evening watching some of the Olympics, seeing England win another couple of gold medals.
And didn’t the folks from the UK love to rub it in. Colin came prepared, and handed Sparkles, Shakira and myself a chocolate gold medal. That being said, I’m sure they were much tastier than the actual gold medals.

A veritable feast was brought out, and I finally got to taste the Highland Lass’s recipe for ham basted in coca cola. Very yum!
Several bottles of champagne were polished off that night, with Colin’s mother getting me to top up her glass on the sly after Colin told her off for drinking too much.
I assisted the Campbell’s on the drinks front throughout the night, so that they could relax and enjoy the Highland Lass’s birthday without needing to stress about looking after their guests.
The Highland Lass received a number of presents and cards that made her clap her hands with glee. She got a very cool movie poster birthday card from her boyfriend, ‘Enri Mugwah, which looked like he had put a lot of effort into, which she really liked.

Colin and Doris took their parents back home, and once they returned they joined the rest of us in a few more drinks, as they had been taking it easy until their olds were given a lift back home.
One of the Highland Lass’s friends came around at the end of dinner, and I quite happily shared my super-cheap slab of Becks with him.

Before too long, we called it a night, as the Highland Lass needed to be up at stupid o’clock to catch a plane to London to visit her other sisters.

This was a very pleasant day, and the Highland Lass enjoyed celebrating another 21st birthday.

A dram of Royal Lochnagar and tea pot cocktails.

Day 20

Now, I know most of blog entries start like this, but most days do too, although not necessarily in this order.

I got up.
I had breakfast.
I had a shower.

We pottered around for a bit in the morning while we waited for everybody to get ready, and then we loaded ourselves up in the trusty old Voxhaull and headed out to a distillery.

On the way there we passed Balmoral Castle, where Lizzie was hiding away for the summer. There was another function on there today, but it was much smaller than the 3500 people in attendance yesterday.
Today it was only 50 people, who were unveiling a cairn in honor of her diamond jubilee.
As we drove past, there was only a very small number of cars going through, but they were all very flash nice looking cars.

We headed on down the road to the nearby distillery, and I was quite taken aback to find that the road went right through the middle of a fairway on a nearby golf course.
We turned off the road and shortly arrived at the Royal Lochnagar Distillery.

It was a stately old granite building, which had a souvenir store as you immediately walked in, and a little alcove leading off to the side. We purchased a few tickets to go on the guided tour, and went to watch a short video on the founding and history of thee distillery.
Within no time at all the tour started.
We were unable to take any photos, so I cannot show you the intricacies or secrets of making whiskey.
But it starts out a lot like making beer, with grains being mashed and… well, there’s no point in me telling you the recipe, because you need massive vats for water to soak up the sugars from the grains, two large copper stills to get it to the proper alcohol content, a lot of other technical high maintenance equipment, and then oak wood casks (mostly second hand, as you can’t age whiskey in virgin casks) to allow the whiskey to age… for 12 years. At least.
So, setting up a home distillery is kind of out of the question.

At the end of the tour, we did get to have a tasting session, where our guide, Gordon, got us to smell the whiskey from different places around our body to appreciate the different flavors in the spirit.
He also offended an old timer on the tour when he spoke of adding water to the whiskey. The old timer voiced rather loudly his contempt of that concept, but Gordon said to him “You can drink your whiskey any way you want. I won’t tell you how to do it. But I am a professional whiskey taster and I get invited to all of the whiskey extravaganzas because I know what I’m talking about.”
After our tasting session, we headed back out into the souvenir area and I picked up a couple of bottles of the Royal Lochnagar whiskey, as it was such a tasty drop.

The Highland Lass’s mother had packed us a picnic lunch, so we sat outside the distillery and had a good tasty feed, before jumping back in the car and stopping off at the local town for some tea and scones.
Well, coffee and scones for me, but they were TASTY! True UK scones.

We drove the car back to Aberdeen, but today was the day that we had to return it. We dropped off the car, and then caught the bus back to the Highland Girl’s house.

After returning to the house, it was time for dinner and a few drinks. The Highland Lass’s other sister, Little Jennifer (yep, 2 Jennifers in the family) came over, and Lisa was still there, so we had a full house. Caroline brought out the ipad after dinner and showed of a few of her favourite videos from youtube, and then it was time to get ready to go out.

Tomorrow is the Highland Lass’s birthday, so birthday drinks are in order (as tomorrow night will be an inappropriate time to have them).
Being a guy, I knew it wouldn’t take me long to get ready, so I let the girls have the first shower. Even so, I was ready before they were.
Sigh.

A taxi was called (with the aim of trying to get the girls to hurry up in their getting ready), and it arrived before they were all ready to walk out the door. I stood by the taxi with Little Jennifer and started calling out that the taxi-man had started the meter and it was already up to 20 pounds. This didn’t seem to have the effect that I was after, as I could see Lisa, Shakira and the Highland Lass faffing around in the entry way. Sparkles had joined us by this stage, and she wandered back up to the house to give them the hurry along.

Finally all of the girls were ready and piled into the taxi… although Lisa needed to stop off at her house on the way to get her going out shoes.
After far too much time, we arrived at the first venue of the evening, REVOLUTION. This was a vodka bar, which had about 73 billion different types of vodkas. They also made cocktails in a large jug, and a couple of the cocktails came in a tea pot. TEA POT COCKTAILS!
We started off with a jug, and took a few photos to set the mood of the evening. The jug of cocktail was very quickly finished, so I headed up to get a tea pot of cocktail and a gin and tonic for the soon to be birthday girl.
Sparkles also wandered up and grabbed 6 different shots of vodka, and the monkey knife-fighting began for who would get what shot.
REVOLUTION called last drinks at 11.30, and so a pee break was called at 11.45. The Highland Lass and I were at the table as midnight approached. I was the first to wish her a happy birthday, and gave her a big hug.
As this was taking place, the other 4 girls returned from their tactical stop, also all wishing her a happy birthday and a group hug was in order.

We departed REVOLUTION and sought out another venue. We were stopped by 2 guys handing out drink cards for a nearby night club, and opted for this as our next port of call. The Highland Lass told them that it was now her birthday, and asked them how old they thought she was. They ummed and ahhed (obviously well trained boys) and declared that the Highland Lass looked 22 (obviously VERY well trained boys).
They both received a hug for their troubles, and we moved on to the next venue, AURORA.

While standing in the queue out the front of this bar, a young sleazy looking Italian fellow in the line behind us asked me which of the 5 beautiful girls was my girlfriend. I told him none of them, that they all already had boys.
He told me that this shouldn’t stop me, and started flirting (well, attempting to) with Shakira. Shakira being Shakira, she put him back in his place although he was still smirking cheekily.

We got inside the venue and our ears were bombarded by rather loud music. I will use this term loosely, as it was more noise than music, and I was quite concerned that the vibrations from the volume and the bass would manage to strike the brown note and cause a hasty (and well deserved) exit from the venue.
The girls dropped off their jackets, and we headed upstairs into the night-club proper.
I must say, I don’t think that I have ever mad my senses molested or raped in the manner that they were this evening.
Not only was the ‘music’ an auditory and tactile overload, the smoke machines were working overtime and clogging up my nasal passages and the sight of what the girls was wearing also left me in a situation where what was seen cannot be unseen.
One of the current fashion trends in Scotland is for shorts that look like they have been half-consumed by the lower regions of the body, with a very high waist. There was also very little that went along in regards to the upper part of the body, and body size and shape did not seem to be a deterrent for this fashion style.
I believe that the only sense that wasn’t overloaded that night was my sense of taste, although in fairness I was drinking Kopperberg ciders, and they have a fairly strong taste anyways.

We tried to dance, tried to talk, and tried to be understood, and finally after far too indeterminate a time we opted to leave this hell hole.
The suggestion of an 80s bar was floated, and we tracked that down, hearing the music as we approached. When we arrived there, though, it turned out the music that we heard was from the strip club next to the 80s club, and the 80s club was in fact closed.
Sigh.
We instead headed to a place that served late night kebabs, which really hit the spot at 2am in the morning.

Spilling out of the kebab store, we waved down a taxi, and found that it was the same taxi driver that had taken us out earlier.
He smiled and said “Don’t worry, I know where to go.”
Everybody got home safely, and got a decent night’s (drunken) sleep.