Fireworks!

So, Friday was Guy Fawkes night and Edinburgh sounded like Sarajevo, circa 1993. Kate and I had planned to go to Meadowbank to watch the fireworks, but a big meal and approximately a bottle of wine each took the edge off our enthusiasm.

Then, after watching the neighbours' kids running around the garden with sparklers, we thought "Sod it - let's find somewhere we can watch the Meadowbank fireworks from." Cue half an hour of wandering through gardens, thorn bushes and parks between Easter Road and London Road, culminating in an accidental B&E into Hibs' stadium, which we mistook for Meadowbank.

"Why are they football goals?"
"Where is everyone?"
"Why are there no fireworks?"
"Is it just me, or does that say 'Visit www.hibernianfc.co.uk' ?"

Go us.

After that, we met up with Dave and Michelle from work and got ver, ver drunk in the Café Royal, and then Pivo. So I'm told.

Top, top night.

So top, in fact, that I had to sprint a mile and a half at 7 am after about three hours sleep to avoid being (too) late to meet up with Jon and Josh so that we could go rafting up north.

We got to Tyndrum - a town that consists only of a hotel, a garage and South Africans - about 9.30 or so, to meet up with Rosie (Jon's sister), a workmate of hers called Mairi (amusingly, this was the same workmate that I harangued mercilessly on Hat Night) and Other Jon. We slurped into our wetsuits, were assigned the big red raft with the tendency to flip, and headed off down the river Orchy.

Apparently the Orchy has the most difficult rapids in Britain. Our crew, with my baggy, staring eyes and Josh's hungover countenance, did not look in a fit state to navigate through much in the way of danger. The previous rafting trip, on the somnolent Tay, had been livened up by our guides' desire to up-end the raft as often as possible, but we'd been reassured on this trip that the water was so cold that we'd be trying as hard as possible to stay dry.

What a load of claptrap. The only rapid we didn't flip on was the hardest one we had to negotiate. Just before the end, where we had to get out and walk past a truly frightening, Death Star-esque rapid, the guides offered us two ways to get back aboard: take 'the long way round' on the path, or a twenty foot jump into the water.

We all jumped, of course. It was absolutely freezing.

The last rapid (comment by our guide: "There's a fifty-fifty chance of flipping on this one. Comment by the guide on the second raft: "There's a five per cent chance of staying in." We flipped) caused us all to catapult bodily into the water, leaving Josh with a designer gash above his left eye.

A good day, I have to say. A fucking good weekend in all, really!

Update: Josh's blog has a rather fine photograph of the final spill into the river.