Happy Hogmanay (or New Years, for the non-Scots...)

A very happy new year to all and welcome to the start of 2010!  I hope that everyone's NYE was filled with much madness, magic and mayhem.  It was after all the end of the noughties and should have been celebrated as such. Maybe not millenium style but still enough sparkle to put the Dorothy shoes to shame! I know that I'm ridiculously late in my new-year well-wishings but I think that there should be a small grace period to give people the chance to gather their writing wits after the fun and festivities of the Christmas season.  Besides, one of my resolutions is to start doing things in my own time and in light of this resolution, I think it's perfectly acceptable for me to be writing my new year post on the seventh of January! ;-)

I'm not normally a resolutions kinda person. I never do them and I rarely remember what I resolved to do anyways. I think that 'Learn French' has been on my New Year Resolutions list for about five years now and still the only French I know is 'Au Revoir' and 'Viola!'. I am however starting a blog resolution though. I've decided to start a travel feature on my blog, seeing as this originally started off being a travel blog. 'Travel Tuesdays' will start next week and am looking for some guest bloggers! I want stories about all your misadventures and all the mischief that you got up to along the way!

As this is a New Years post, it seems fitting that the first misadventurous travel tale should be about New Years Eve.  Last year, I celebrated Hogmanay in Edinburgh.  I spent Christmas week in Manchester with family and had to take a train back to Edinburgh on the day of New Years Eve as that was the only available train ride between Christmas and New Years.  I think that every single person in Britain decided to descend on Edinburgh that day because despite having paid for a seat, I had to stand in the hall by the stinking toilets for most of the three and a half hour journey.  Then when we finally arrived at Waverley train station after major delays, all the taxis had to be redirected away from the train station due to the street party on Princes street and so I had to walk all the way to the nearest taxi rank, carrying a bulging suitcase, two duffel bags and a backpack.

The plan was to have a relaxing afternoon before the madness of the night began.  Some holiday banter with my flatmate, unpack my stuff and take my time getting ready.  Maybe have a little nap.  Instead it was a sandwich on the run, throw on the cleanest dress in my wardrobe and leg it down to the local pub before my friends took a taxi to the street party we were going to.  Banging through the door of the pub in a great, big tangle of handbag straps and ankle boot laces, I practically fell into the arms of none other than The Rat.

Most girls are familiar with the behaviour of The Rat.  One guy who manages to make you feel like the most beautiful, attractive girl in the room by lavishing you with honeyed words and rapt attention.  He then manages to make you feel like a complete fool when you come back from the bathroom to find he's left without a word or doesn't call you when he says he will the next day. My Rat was a guy I met the first night I arrived in Edinburgh and is not someone I would wish to see the new year in with.  Unfortunately, he still had my number and this brief meeting at the pub sparked off an evening of one-sided phone calls and text messages.

On top of this, I managed to leave my coat at home and arrived at the street festival in a very thin, off-the-shoulder dress and stiletto ankle boots.  I think that the temperature by that time was in the negative degrees and my poor Southern-Hemisphere adapted body has never felt cold like it before.  I was freezing to death, almost crippled by my new stiletto boots and somehow managed to get separated from my group of friends within the first half hour.

By the time midnight struck, I was jammed in the middle of a mosh-pit, ignoring The Rat's constant phone calls and desperately dodging a New Years kiss from a Kiwi rugby player with cauliflower ears while masses of sweaty emo teenagers bounced on my toes.  I couldn't even be bothered to sing Auld blimin' Lang Syne and ended the evening crying my eyes out in my bathtub and pouring boiling hot water over my legs because my toes had turned blue and I couldn't feel them anymore. Happy Hogmanay everyone! I hear Paulo Nutini was playing at the street party but I honestly couldn't tell you. 

What are your most miserable NYE memories?

Lots of love!
xxx