THIS WAS THE first time I had even been to Edinburgh. Truth be told I had only been to Scotland once before and that was by accident. Myself, Rodders, Jeffo, Dame Judy, Dave Dade, John and Tom (Later to be known as Bunty) Cutler were all on the same flight. When we arrived at Edinburgh airport we discovered it was about a half hour bus ride to the centre of the city. However, we did not get a chance to see much of the glorious architecture, as our illustrious Webmaster, displaying a sprightliness that belied his several hundred years, shot up the hill like a ferret up a drainpipe, and the rest of us were hard pushed to keep up.

I had called the Despicable Parsons en-route, and was not too astonished to learn that he was in the nearest pub to the hotel (due to the hotel having no bar). Bill Mackie and clan seemed to have matters well in hand when we had dumped the bags and joined the burgeoning throng. Several pints of Eighty Shilling later and we were rounded up and herded into the British Legion for the actual AGM. I am sure the DP in his secretarial capacity will post the minutes of the AGM here, so probably the only thing I need to add was that it was extremely dull, as usual.

Back to the bar then with all speed, a bit of a curry at some local Indian establishment. The curry was ok and then it was back to the Conan Doyle, which we found ourselves sharing with what was presumably a hen night, judging by the fact that they were a bunch of drunk female Edinburgers wearing plastic hair bands to which were attached pink Day-Glo penises (peni?) It was actually quite a good combination, although I have my doubts that Jeffo's line that he used to have the world's longest moustache but had to have it surgically removed because of the mange, was ever going to work. I don't know why (I can't really blame it on jet lag) but I was ready to hit the hay just before midnight. As I write this I am sitting on the plane next to Tom (later to be known as Bunty) Cutler, who has little or no idea what happened between then and 2am when he was heard banging on the hotel door demanding ingress, so I have no idea what happened after I left, either not much or quite a lot.

Breakfast I would have to admit was a bit of a disappointment, but no-one was more disappointed than Treasurer McBride who having arrived at ten past nine, waited for 21 minutes for his breakfast and when he finally asked where it was, was told that breakfast finished at 9.30. He was sufficiently irked to check out of the hotel there and then, suggesting places to put breakfasts that you will not read about in the Michelin guide. I got the chance to practice my fluent French at breakfast with Martine, Pascal's friend/wife/mistress who didn't speak much English. Well it sounded fluent to me but I don't think either of them understood a word I was saying for some reason.

There was no real plan, other than to be at the Scottish Parliament by three, so Dan took the initiative and cut out to the castle and soon everyone was there. We tried to see how many people we could fit in the castle guard box until Jörg and Rodders arrived. The castle was great and the padré had furnished us with our own tour guide for a while, but he made the mistake of putting his tour guide badge on and was shooed away by a rival tour guide. I presume there is a dark underbelly to the tour guiding business of which I was previously unaware... Later I did see him in the pub, so at least he is not at the bottom of the North Sea wearing concrete boots. Rodders and I stayed to watch the One O'clock Gun. I didn't have my big camera with me (I will have in Alaska) so was reliant on snapper Littlewood who had all the gear, but the gun made him jump and he took a splendid picture of the one o'clock sky with no gun in sight.

From the castle we drunk our way down the mountain and all assembled at Jenny Ha's (which is a pub opposite the Scottish Parliament) where we were photographed by the local paparazzi and shown the innards of Scottish democracy, which was pretty interesting.

We found Sarah and Paul here, because they'd been off around the Royal Yacht Britannia, another of Edinburgh's delights. After getting changed for dinner it was a swift half in the Conan Doyle before we followed Guy Heathcote's magnetic nose to our next port of call, which was the Royal Scots Club for dinner. This, for me, apart from the beautiful city of Edinburgh itself was the highlight of the trip. As befits the Royal Scottish regiment the place was well-organised, civilised, well kept... in fact everything our hotel wasn't. Hats off to the padré for organising that one.

Now, I know that haggis is the national dish of Scotland and all that, but by heavens they make a song and dance about it. Let's not forget its origins as a food for the poor, akin to tripe in England. We all had to stand whilst the haggis was ceremonially piped into the room, accompanied by some of the Mackie clan, where it was toasted, read a poem to by the slothful Halbert (later McHalbert), carved and piped out again by the bagpipes. This film by Sarah is from YouTube:

The English equivalent of this would be something like the Grenadier Guards trooping the colour for a plate of bangers and mash, a fairly unlikely scenario. It was all good fun though and was the inspiration for the epic poem The Battle of the Haggis which can be found here.

There were various other goings on throughout the meal such as an auction. One of the prizes at said auction was a signed copy of '211 Things a Bright Girl Can Do' by one 'Bunty Cutler' (and try not to get that the wrong way round). This, it transpired, is one of Tom's pseudonyms, and one that now it is out in the open is not going to go back in the box if I have anything to do with it hehe. The sweepstake winnings from the curry event were handed out, and the curry event and evening meal together raised £340 in total for the Army Benevolent Fund.

The Royal Scots' was so much nicer than the local boozer so we stayed there until they stopped serving us and at about 2am. I snuck into Jörg's taxi hoping that the bar in his hotel would still be serving, but alas it was not to be and the evening sort of fizzled out, though many of us were good for a while longer.

Sunday was going home day, our flight was at about 2pm so we needed to leave the hotel at about midday. This didn't really leave us much time to do anything other than eat breakfast and say goodbye to one and all, but the good news is that a large number of the participants will be in Alaska in a month's time and we are all very much looking forward to that.

As usual I would end with my thanks to the organisers, which were mostly the padré and clan Mackie. It was a splendid weekend and I only wish it had been a bit longer. Edinburgh comes highly recommended and there is so much more to do there. We did not get to tour a distillery, Loch Ness is only a couple of hours away, I did not get to see the Camera Obscura, or go on the ghost hunt, and I strongly suspect that Edinburgh has not seen the last of me.