A leisurely weekend in Edinburgh

There were seven of us for breakfast at mine on Saturday morning, including Dominik's girlfriend, over from Germany for three weeks. Clemens, Carol, Axier and I caught a bus and spent Saturday afternoon browsing in "retail park" for clothes. Axier and Clemens came away with new jackets. Clemens declared it would henceforth be potato dinner month.

Come Sunday, Axier is now sporting a new home-fashioned 'do that has been affectionately called "Punky". Why not? It has also come to our attention that he has quite a red beard, and "Barba-roja" is rolling quite nicely off the tongue.

Ariane, Clemens, Carol, Axier, Kale and I headed to the youth hall where Clemens and Axier volunteer, attached to a church in one of the less privileged areas of Edinburgh. The hall is the perfect hangout place, as imagined when you were a kid in the eighties.

Axier and Clemens recently passed their rock climbing instructor certificates. We had GREAT fun on the indoor rock climbing wall.

                   

The kids have great facilities.

We then tortured the karaoke on the games system for a while - something I spent three months in Japan training for.

For dinner we heated ourselves some pizzas and cherry pie from the supermarket next door, then settled in on the beanbags to watch "Basic Instinct". What a shocker, piece of plastic movie :D

I also watched "Top Gun" with some other friends recently, and I have to say, revisiting 80s and 90s blockbusters is a great shared experience.

Ariane's 20th

We had a great night out at a bar in Leith called Port O' Leith. We came across it a couple of weeks back, and it was Ariane's choice for her twentieth. It has seafaring decor, extremely eclectic retro music, and an unusual grab-bag of patrons, from two-tone-haired girls dancing on the bar to a late middle-aged man reading a newspaper in the corner. The bouncer is a grey-haired, contented looking woman who it turns out is also the owner. Being in the bar feels like you might be living in a movie.

Axier and I spent Saturday morning buying gifts for a goodie bag to present on behalf of all the international group. I think the present pictured below, an angry mannequin, was a gift from Mary, a nightclub friend of Ariane's who we only met for the first time that night.

It turned out to be a good test run for a twenty-first birthday. We all mixed our drinks horribly. For Edinburgh, the drinks are cheap.

Kale and I won the bright-eyed approval of the owner by doing a frenzied jig to a particularly jig-worthy song. She complimented us heartily after closing time, as we made our way out to more dancing in Leith Walk dens of iniquity.

Axier, Carmen and Joaquim stayed over at mine. Most of the group, in rather diminished spirits, met over my kitchen table for late cooked breakfast on the day of Ariane's actual birthday, Sunday. Ariane had difficulty stomaching the morning, but was determined that she couldn't spend her birthday in bed.

Seventies Carpet Party

I threw a little do, in honour of the pending demise of my carpet, which is a survivor from the 70s refit of Goldbergs Department Store, Tollcross. The owner of all four of the apartments in our stair was a renovator and refitter, and gifted this flat with daily department store joy for the past few decades. In the 80s, Goldbergs had come to look like this:

The carpet is not only going because of its horrendous purple and red patterning, like a sea with blotches of bright vomit swirled with a "G". Also contributing are the dog sized hole, an entirely separated middle join, and the trapdoor-like cut0ut sections that can be lifted up and put back down if you so please. I've therefore negotiated its demise with my landlady, to take place over the next couple of weeks.

The premise of the party was thus to dress either 70s, or carpet. A couple of the guys did both, with open necked shirts - door prizes (booby prizes?) for them. The dress code wasn't strictly enforced, but it helps set an atmosphere, right? Some 70s funk streaming radio from the internet set the rest of the mood, along with a potent Midori Illusion punch bowl.

A local charity shop contributed a horrendous purple and red shirt in dazzling test-pattern, to match the carpet. It was wrong, and is now gifted on.

The dependable international crew got the party started.

Every good theme party needs a posing section:
Luke and Ariane...

Axier, in his "new" Armani white trousers and paisley shirt and tie...

The smoking Angel with stamina, Dawn...

Luke (keeping the posing section alive, shock!) ...

Then, the slap and tickle section. Highlight was Michelle, finding Clemens' tickley nurples.

People also drank, and talked, as you might expect, but these aren't such photographically noteworthy activities. There was a spurt of Year 9 ballroom dancing, and some sharing of Baileys, and new acquaintances struck between folks who hadn't previously met.

Carmen arrived with her three visitors from Spain, Nuria, Irene and Esti,

And Kat, one of the two Waterpoint leaders at Beltane 2008, graciously popped in after a day's work.

Nicci arrived with entourage Bernie and Erin in a blaze of hazy glory and activity,

but faded and spent the majority of her evening catching up on overdue shut-eye.

All in all, a damn fine party. I'm getting to like this party business.

Views from my flat

Edinburgh put on a nice rainbow on Saturday:

the view from my window.