Tonight I met a girl called Annie, Amy or Anne, it’s hard to say which for certain. When referring to her in subsequent conversations I called her “Annie, Amy, whatever the girl with the screechy voice, was called…” For the purposes of this blog, I shall call her Ms Screech. You’ll have to remember that, because a lot happened before Ms Screech entered our lives.

Our day started with a lovely cooked breakfast among scores of French rugby fans and Schumanian serving staff. Seriously, we could have been anywhere in Europe. We then set off up to the Royal Mile to visit Mary King’s Close.

The last time we were in Edinburgh (with Mirinda rather than Nicktor) we tried to visit but there earliest timeslot was too long away for us to wait so we missed out. This time, Nicktor booked us in online, ages ago, so we were safely on the 10:30 tour. And I’m so glad we went. What an amazing tourist site.

Back in the dim, dark times, the inhabitants of Edinburgh Old Town (actually it was before the New Town was built, so I guess it was just the town) lived in squalid conditions. They were packed into small tenement rooms along long, narrow lanes. The lanes went down the hill, finishing in the long gone North Loch (Nor’ Loch as the locals call it). This was the finishing point for just about everything in Edinburgh so was a bit ripe…to say the least.

These days, the remains of Mary King’s Close are beneath a building that became known as the City Chambers. It was originally supposed to be the Royal Exchange but the merchants it was built for didn’t like it so, eventually (1811) the Town Council gave up trying to convince them and reclassified it’s purpose.

Rather than remove all the buildings, they simply levelled off the Closes and used the walls and original foundations for the new building. This created a series of tunnels and small dark rooms. These were used for storage and air raid shelters as required.

In 1853, Cockburn Street was started, ploughing straight through the lower part of the Closes.

Eventually a group called Continuum researched the area and carried out detailed archaeological investigation, finally opening it as a tourist attraction in 2002.

We wandered through rooms and down dark, dank alleys, hearing about all sorts of appalling things from our excellent tour guide, Connor Jones. It’s an amazing place and well worth seeing when visiting Edinburgh. It certainly set us up for the day.

We went straight from the Close to Waverley Station (where the evil Nor’ Loch once fumed) to catch a train to Dunfermline. We were off to watch Dunfermline Athletic at their home ground, East End Park, play Stenhousemuir.

Mark is a Dunfermline supporter. He grew up there and is a fan like Nicktor is an Aldershot fan. The things is, the Pars (as Dunfermline are called) are in the same sort of league as the Shots but in a much bigger, all seater stadium.

But, before the game, we were given a guided tour of the town.

On our trip around the town we discovered that it was the birthplace of Robert the Bruce, Charles I, Ian Anderson of band, Jethro Tull fame, Moira Shearer and Andrew Carnegie. In fact, the original Carnegie Hall is there. We also discovered there’s a palace and abbey, a lot of it in ruins, sited there. We actually walked through bits of it as we made our way up from the station to the Old Inn for a few pints.

The other sides say ROBERT, THE and BRUCE

From the Old Inn, we made our way up to the East Port pub. We didn’t like this as much as the Old Inn and the beer wasn’t as good but Mark met up with a few people he knew and it was only a brief stop before we headed to the football ground.

There’s a few things to say about the ground. It’s quite big, it’s an all-seater and the bridies are brilliant. For anyone who doesn’t know what a bridie is, it is a wonderful delicacy full of beefy goodness and gravy, all wrapped in a pastry shell. Imagine a Cornish pasty and you’ll get the general look. But that’s where any similarity ends.

Mark had promised us we’d love them. And he wasn’t wrong. Nicktor and I liked ours so much, we had a second. I didn’t eat anything else all day, it was so filling.

Sadly, the football didn’t quite live up to the bridies. The game was a bit dull (apart from a flurry in the second half) and ended 0-0. While the Pars did most of the attacking and looked like scoring quite a few times, it never happened and we all went away a bit sad.

We made our way back to the East Port Bar (though I went via the local Costa for a much needed latte) for a final beer before getting a taxi back into Edinburgh, via the airport so Andy could leave us. And so we ended up at some awful bar which I’d rather forget than name.

We met up up with Ken who works for the same company as Mark, and a bunch of clients he’d taken to the rugby. Included among this group were Ms Screech and Dave, a guy who’d fallen into the Thames at St Katherine Dock and lived to tell the tale, though his luggage didn’t.

Ken, I didn’t like very much. He was very dominating, loud and a bit of a bully. The others seemed all right, though I didn’t really get much of a chance to talk to them. This was mainly because of the music being played in the bar which was at a level so loud, it made talking and hearing simply painful. It wasn’t a club and there was no dancing. Whenever I walked through the main bar, everyone was shouting. Why does anyone go there? I know I’ll never return.

Anyway, the night was basically about drinking and people trying to have conversations. At one point Ms Screech had a massive argument with Nicktor about what a true football fan really is. She is of the opinion that to win an argument, it’s really important to screech at a pitch high enough to attract dogs, shatter champagne glasses and deafen people. She was awful. She also said she was born with the screechy voice. If that is so then I pity her mother at feeding time.

A little later, I did manage to have a sensible conversation with her about music where she spoke at a normal level. I think, given enough help and training, she could actually be quite nice. Sadly, I don’t think this will ever happen since the main tactic people employed with her was to try and speak louder and more forceful.

Anyway, this was all about business and, frankly, I was quite bored, though had I been a client I’d have been less than impressed with the venue and some of the people there. But, that’s not a problem for me to worry about. Apart from Mark (who I like very much) I’ll probably never see any of them ever again.

We left the bar well after midnight. By all intents and purposes, we should have been quite drunk but, due to years of training, we weren’t. Though, mysteriously, Nicktor did manage to have a hangover the next morning.

So, that was it. A big day and a blog post that is far too long. I wanted to mention the amazing railway bridge we travelled across but I’ve gone on way longer than is reasonable, so here’s a link instead. It really is simply amazing.

Southampton has the loveliest little airport. When I say ‘little’ I mean one single building, just a short walk from the car park and a runway too small for big planes.

Speaking of planes…sadly we weren’t taking one of the really cute twin propeller jobs north. Even so, our jet plane only had two seats either side of a central aisle and quite a rickety ladder up to the door.

Once settled into our seats, Nicktor went to his zone-out place while I watched some zombie action, starting series three of The Walking Dead.

Upon arrival at Edinburgh, we met Andy (Nicktor knows him from work, I’d never met him), collected my bag and stepped out into the wind and decidedly cooler temperature. We quickly moved into a cab for the short ride into town.

The student accommodation that Nicktor confused with a hotel, just happened to be around the corner from where Nicktor was having a tour of the company call centre. Handy. Even so, he and Andy headed into the modern building while I started the walk into Waverley station in order to catch the bus out to Ocean Terminal to wander round the old port.

I didn’t bother with the Royal Yacht Britannia (we visited it last time we were in Edinburgh) but wandered around, following a walk I’d found online.

I saw so many lovely ships. I stood and watched the Kapitan Konkin taking on, what appeared to be some sort of ore. I only watched for a short while because the ferocious wind and driving hail, forced me to seek the shelter of Ocean Terminal until the weather improved.

The ferocious wind soon blew the hail away and I once stepped out into what was now a blue sky and set off for the old dock area.

Leith was once the centre for shipbuilding but, like all of them, it fell into decline turning the place into a deprived area of rough types. It was rarely visited by gentle folk.

Then came the progressives, turning warehouses into flats and slums into restaurants. It didn’t take long before the whole place was once more part of proper society. Okay, that’s a bit extreme but the end result is certainly something to crow about.

A lot of the building and restoration work is in sympathy with the original style and blends in beautifully. The one thing that could have improved it would be some sort of invention to stop the incessant wind.

I spotted an interesting vessel, moored across the channel from me. She is the French brigantine, the STS Jean de la Lune. The scaffolding is around the second mast which is, I guess, being repaired. A very pretty little boat, if you ask me.

Having wandered full circle, both with and against the wind, feeling almost Dorothy-esque, I settled into Starbucks for a light, late lunch before heading back into the town on the wonderfully regular number 22 bus.

On the way back down to the student accommodation that Nicktor confused with a hotel, I decided to pop into the Surgeon’s Hall Museum. This snap decision turned out to be quite fortuitous.

The museum is part of the Royal College of Surgeons which was founded in 1505 as the Incorporation of Surgeon Barbers of Edinburgh. The collection is made up of lots of surgeons’ ‘stuff’ and is suitably gruesome. It’s similar to, and slightly better than, the Hunterian in London – that’s my opinion.

Sadly, I couldn’t find any gout. A lot of the museum is taken up with battle field surgery, bullet holes, hacked off limbs, blown up bits, etc. There is a rather bizarre painting of a man who was shot through his testicles. The rest of him was completely unscathed. It’s anyone’s guess how it happened (I couldn’t).

An amazing place though annoyingly, given there’s no guide book, no photography allowed.

When I emerged it was to drenched streets and pavements. There had obviously been as huge down pour during my museum visit. Smiling into the now sunny skies, I wandered down to the student accommodation that Nicktor confused with a hotel and checked in.

Actually, I’m being a bit hard on Nicktor. The accommodation was fine…well, my room was, anyway. And there was no column in the shower.

I was having a lovely little rest when it was shattered by a knock at the door and a demand that I join Nicktor, Mark and Andy in the foyer. So, shoes back on and off to the Grey Friar’s pub, where beer was had while Nicktor, Andy and Mark had a rehash of their day at the call centre.

Andy, Mark & Nicktor in the Grey Friar’s pub

From Grey Friars we moved to the Ensign Ewart (having failed to gain entrance into the heaving Jolly Judge). I haven’t mentioned it yet but tomorrow night is a rugby international between Scotland and France and it’s here, in Edinburgh. This means that Edinburgh is packed with the French. Walking down the streets is like being in Paris. Very odd.

We had a few more beers at the Ensign Ewart (lovely Black Sheep) and successfully deciphered the big painting on the wall before Mark went up and read the inscription above it, which agreed with our interpretation exactly.

It shows brave Ensign Charles Ewart of the Scots Greys, as he captures the French flag at the Battle of Waterloo. It seemed ironic given virtually everyone sitting under and around it, were French.

We were then joined by Evelyn, someone who Nicktor worked with in his old job. She’d just returned from two years working in Denmark. They hadn’t seen each other for years. It was a lovely reunion and a lot of catching up was done. It’s always fun meeting Nicktor’s old friends, because it gives us all a chance to take the mickey out of him.

Evelyn was lovely, lively and great fun and made up the fifth and final person in the group. We finished our drinks and popped across the road to Hanam’s Restaurant. What a fantastic meal! And, in a wonderful bit of coincidence, one of our waitresses was from Katoomba.

Now, I’m afraid the discussion became a little lively when religion was mentioned (not by me). There followed a long diatribe about the stupidity of an invisible creator, the waste of time that praying is and my general opinions about fate and other suchlike nonsense. It wasn’t until we were on the way back to our hotel, that Nicktor told me Andy is a Catholic.

Sorry, Andy, but I take nothing back. Hopefully you’re not too upset. And, Mark, I don’t care what you say, hope and fate are two entirely different things. Only one of them is real, for a start.

Still, ignoring my realism, we had a lovely night and, finally, crashed at about midnight.