(Even Though I'm Blue)

My Dear Fellow,

I wonder if you remember that Er Indoors's nickname when I met her was "Skips"? She'd been adopted by the Hebrides gang and one of their number was called McIver - hence his nickname was "Kiwi" so even though she was a Kiwi, she couldn't be "Kiwi".

Instead they decided that NZ is near Australia. Australia = kangaroos. Kangaroos = Skippy. Skippy = "Skips".

It probably made more sense in the pub.

It was this bunch of Hebrideans that we went to see today. Er Indoors and I have known them all for nearly 20 years but we don't see so much of them lately. I have to say, seeing them today made me feel a little old. One of them has just had knee-surgery, another had a varicose vein removed and there was a lot of menopause talk.

For a while there, listening to the conversation reminded me of sitting with grandparents as a kid, and then realising to my horror that now I too was one of the grandparents.

But Fiona Mac had put a lot of work to the food. "I was just making hokey-pokey when you arrived," she explained.

("Hokey-pokey" is huge in NZ. It's basically cinder toffee. And if you read that last sentence and thought Fiona meant anything else then SHAME ON YOU.)

She had also made a lovely Pavlova, and was threatening to bake Afghan biscuits as well. All for Skips, who felt completely overwhelmed by all the love and attention.

But we were just getting started. After an afternoon with the Heb crowd, we headed down to Leith to meet Carol & Jodie, Laura & Andy and Nicky. Carol is very VERY organised. I love it. She had booked a table at "A Room In Leith" so we sat outside Teuchter's Landing and had drinks first.

Outside! I KNOW! How very antipodean of us! It was actually a spectacular evening in Leith before a cloud ruined everything and we all sat shivering in jackets. But for 10 minutes there it was great.

In those 10 minutes the tone was immediately lowered by Laura, who had customised her dress too much. "One gust of wind and you might all see my vagina," she commented.

"Your WHAT??" said Andy.
"My - er - my 'lady area'," corrected Laura.
"Her foo-foo, her toybox, her Tinkerbell, her tuppence," added Nicky.

Andy was learning new words. "In Germany we call it a Muschi," he explained. I thought I'd pass that on, in case you didn't already know.

And then Andy moved the conversation on by taking out his phone and finding this for us.

Dinner was a lot of fun. The manager of "A Room in Leith" is a very French fellow named Eric who was great all night, and the food was lovely. Naturally the effing phones came out for effing selfies and at one point poor Eric was handed four phones at once so the moment could be preserved and preserved and preserved.

For a photophobe like myself it was torture. Laura attempted to take a picture of Er Indoors and me. "Okay now another one where you DON'T look like you're angry at me," she said.

Another bit of excitement was getting invited to Nicky's wedding which will be taking place in Adelaide next year. It's not like Adelaide is just down the road from Wellington, but as Nicky pointed out, "at least you're in the right hemisphere". I hope we can go. It will be nice to have something sociable to do after a few months of being in a new city.

Then there was a doggy interlude. Jodie had to go and walk Gracie his Cockerpoo and since he lives in Leith, he walked her back to the restaurant where she ran about the courtyard like an excited mop-head, all fluff and flying paws. She was lovely.

"Ahem, your coffees are getting COLD," said Eric from the doorway. So we said our goodbyes to Jodie and Gracie and went back inside for coffees and more drinks.

If you sense an evening that was getting messy then well done. There was singing from Nicky who apparently knows all the words to every song from "The Sound of Music". She and Carol serenaded a bemused Er Indoors with "So Long, Farewell". This prompted Eric to reappear, and Andy explained that we were leaving Scotland after 20 years.

"Ah've been 'ere for twenty years as well," said Eric. "I mean to stay only a year beut then I find ze Scottish complain a leetle less than the French."

"Do you know any Kiwi leaving songs?" asked Carol.

I don't often sing in public. But by this stage in the evening I'd had a few whiskies and so I thought of one and fortunately my lovely wife rescued me by joining in.

So it was a big night. There were huge man-hugs from Andy, because he's just such a lovable bear of a chap, and kisses on the cheek from all the women. I will miss them all, and we got back to our place in Stockbridge at about 1.30, tired and only mildly drunk.

And yes, a little bit blue. We are already suffering from pre-nostalgia for Edinburgh. As evidenced by today's blip - one page from a book of photos I had made up. It arrived today and I plan to place it on our bookshelf in Wellington, and look at it every time I need to remember all these wonderful people. So quite a lot of pictures of pubs, then...

Parsones