Boozing

A couple of months ago, some friends of ours made a booze trip to France with quite a large van. When we returned from Australia, we realised why, finding an invitation to AB's 60th birthday party amongst our post. How nice! We still remember his 50th birthday party, which involved a coach trip to a large barn somewhere outside Edinburgh one Saturday night during the Festival, and an epic evening of drinking, dinner and entertainment. It was similar this time, except that we were in a posh marquee erected in one of the crescent gardens near Haymarket. While the entertainment last time was Nicolas Parsons, this time it was Fred MacAulay. Pretty funny, although I must confess that by that time I was fading fast. We were a little late to the party, because my flight was a bit late leaving Frankfurt, and then I had to wait about 20 minutes for a taxi at the airport. We decided to keep the taxi, and at home swapped my bag for Mr A (my bag went in the boot of the car, from where we rescued it when we got home much later), and then we zoomed straight up to the West End. Lots of old friends, lots of hilarity, and **lots and lots** of excellent food and drink.

Luckily I didn't have too tiring a day up to that point. I ducked out of the conference sessions, pleading the weakness of my German, and got on with some work in the hotel, until I had to check out. Then I had a wander around the town, which has some quite pretty bits, before a couple of us were chauffeured to the airport.