Saturday's story

Long busy day on Friday with the first batch of x - mas dinners through the system, so for me it was a long soak in the tub and a night watching Gino get crowned king of the Jungle - I actually enjoyed this series.

Saturday morning - wee bit of a long lie then took a lift from RGB into town. Popped into the Mercat Bar, where the fresh faced Scott was hard at work ( big change without that droopy moustache). Downstairs there was a large stag group in for breakfast and as you can see the Groom was running about like a "headless chicken" - and believe it or not, on his way up to Kinross to play rugby - before coming back to get into part 2 of their doo.

Friday night I had been trolling through some papers and found by birth certificate with my place of birth, 9 Grosvener Street, on it. Well, Grosvener Street is less than 100 yards from the Mercat bar, so I went round and there was the doorway to No 9, which at one time had been a private nursing home, and it is now The Grosvener Hilton Hotel !!

Went in , front door is No 11, and had words with the staff who are going to try and get a hold of some of the old drawings and history.

From there I made for Frasers to see the lovely Gillian @ smelly girl - nice to see her. Onwards, I travelled along Princes Street, which is looking good without any tramworks - the new rails are down, the buses and taxis are back on the road and the street was generally buzzing.

Standing Order was very busy, the great pole dancer, Archie was on duty along with Robert, ably assisted by Helen who was having a "smashing time", dropping piles of plates to the delight of the clientele. i had just missed young Tracy, accompanied by the wild children and even wilder father, Alan, out for a run as his dearly beloved was off on a girlie thing !!

Several wines later I headed for the bus to Leith, and got chatting to co passenger - who told me that for the past 21 years he had been a "santa claus" in one of the local stores but had retired. His new hobby was writing poetry, but he related a tale of his most memorable moment with a child as santa - little girl on his knee 20 yrs ago and he asked what she wanted for Christmas, after serious deliberation and much persuasion she said " I had so many nice presents last x-mas, could you get something nice for my Mummy this year" - a sobering thought in these days.

Made it to the Edinburgh Masonic Club for a meeting of the Ancient Order of the Squaremen, Edinbugh No 1 shed, which was as good as usual, next one is 9th January '10.

With Sparky Mark we took a lift out to Cameron Toll and caught a bus homewards, an eventful journey with much hilarity, and even met the sister of Jim Archibald, one of lads I used to go to the Woodville Restaurant with way back in the late 60's.

Next move was to team up with RGB, Go Jo, Mrs B. and along with Sparky headed for the Peni Deli where we had booked a table for dinner - the x-mas menu was excellent and really good value. the wee restaurant was packed out, and with it being a PYOB ( bring your own bottle) place the wines were flowing.

A good day/night was had by all