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A Sunday Afternoon in Edinburgh

1/20/2011

It's Sunday, the working week is over, family commitments have been fulfilled. I have an afternoon that I can enjoy !

So I went into Edinburgh with a good friend, John, and we spent the afternoon in four great pubs. They Were - "The Halfway House" - "The Guildford" - "Cafe Royal Bar & Buffet" and "The Voodoo Rooms". We had a great afternoon just chilling out, drinking some great ales and soaking in the atmosphere from these beautiful, traditional Edinburgh pubs. To help show you more a bout the pubs We took along a video camera and filmed a little in each of them, the films are below. There is also a pub review page for each of them on the Pub Reviews page.

The first pub we went to was "The Halfway House". This is halfway up the steps, ( that's why its called the halfway house ), on Flesh Market Close, just across from the Waverly train station. I have passed this pub many times and wondered what it was like on the inside, especially as it has a large sign outside telling us it was "Edinburgh pub of the year 2009". Well I can tell you it is SMALL ! but cosy and serves some great real ales from Scotland's new breweries. It also serves traditional Scottish food such as haggis, oatcakes, etc. I can see why it was pub of the year as it makes a real effort to provide an excellent selection of food and drinks which is constantly changing.

Check out the video:

We then moved onto The Guildford Arms, which is on West Register street. This is on the other side of the Waverly train station, behind the Princess Street Burger King. We came here because I had been in contact with the person who writes the web site www.goodbeergoodpubs.com and they were astonished that I didn't have it on the site already. This gave me a brilliant excuse to come back here, (not that I needed much encouragement). This is one of my all time favourite Edinburgh pubs. It has been family owned for over a hundred years, it serves great cask conditioned ales, a large selection of whiskies and I have never had any bad service, even when the bar is full to bursting. Today however it was quite quiet and me and John just chatted over A couple of pints of Exciseman's Ale and took in the surroundings. I took a small video, (which is now on the pub review page for the Guildford Arms), then we tried to take another little video, have a look at what happened below:

Round the corner, still on West Register Street is The Cafe Royal Bar & Buffet. This is a beautiful bar and is more than worth a visit for the decor alone, never mind the excellent service and great selection of food and drinks. This is a great place to take your wife, girlfriend, or in my case, John. It is just a great place to be, although I felt that we were a little under dressed. I've been here many times before, the last time I was here I was with my mate Donny and we both had the oysters - they were fabulous ! Check out the pictures on the pub review page, (the link is highlighted in brown above), and the video below:

If you keep going round the corner on West Register Street then you come to The Voodoo Rooms, (as this was the fourth pub of the afternoon we were getting a little merry). The Voodoo Rooms is more than just a bar, it's a music venue, a cafe restaurant, a club, etc. The decor is black and gold and hits you like a wet leather glove, especially if you've had a few. Apart from that, I like this place and have seen many comedy shows here and spent a few nights at this bar during the festival. Well worth a visit, for many different reasons. Check out the video.

We really enjoyed the time we spent that afternoon and no doubt will do it again some time soon.

Cheers !

Alastair

P.S. If you know of some good pubs, Please tell me !!! - I'm always on the look out for new places to go.

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New Year - New Start

1/14/2011

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OK, the decision has been made, and action has been taken.

I have handed in my notice at work, my last day at work is on the 28th of January 2011, I am now going to work as a freelancer. This is quite a scary prospect as there will be no regular wage at the end of the month ! I am currently the head audio visual technician in the RBS conference center, Edinburgh, but I hope to work with companies such as M.C.L., Metro, Production Bureau, West End Studios, S.E.C.C. Glasgow, etc at events all over the UK and abroad. I am already booked to work for nine days in March in Barcelona with West End Studios.

It has been a slow week with not a lot happening at home. Most people are in the post festive season slump having eaten too much, drank too much and spent too much. The best day this week was Thursday as I took my family to see a musical called "The Secret garden". This was on at the Festival theatre in Edinburgh. I am not usually a fan of musicals but we were given the tickets as a Christmas present so off we went. I am really glad we did as it was excellent ! check out the video below:

I hope to have more pub and drinking news for you next week as I am planning a day in Edinburgh reviewing some new pubs, probably this weekend. One of the pubs will be the Guildford Arms. This is because I was in contact during the week with the author of www.GoodBeerGoodPubs.co.uk, which is an excellent site for finding good pubs in England, and he was appalled that I didn't have a review of it on the site already. This will be sorted out this weekend.

Until next week...........

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Bringing In The New Year

1/3/2011

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It's the second day of the New Year and I find myself locked away in my garage, thinking about the last few days.

My garage isn't that bad, I probably forgot to mention that it has a small bar, a digital progector, screen and 5.1 surround sound system and a lock on the door to keep my children out. This is where I usually write this blog, work on the web site and generally hide from the world.

The last few days have been a mixture of really quiet, too much drink, large crowds of people and family get togethers.

On boxing day we, (Christine, my two daughters and me), headed to Christine's family farm for a few days and spent time there eating too much, playing with lots of nephews, playing board games and watching lots of TV. On the Monday I decided to leave the farm and go for a walk, so I headed into the local town, Howwood, and met up with a old friend of mine, Andy. As you have probably guessed, we went for a few beers. We went to The Railway Inn, there is a review on the pub page, and settled in for a few drinks and a catch up. Unfortunately I didn't have much to eat before walking down to Howwood so the drinks went to my head almost straight away, you can probably hear me already begin to slur my words in the video below.

Andy likes the occasional drink and always drinks faster than me. I should have learned by now not to try and keep up but I did exactly that and by the time I left the pub I was quite merry. I should have gone straight home but I decided to review a few more pubs so I got a taxi to Lochwinnoch and headed to the Corner Bar. I was a bit more unsteady on my feet than I thought so I only had one drink here and headed to the Garthland Arms. I had a couple of drinks here, talked with a few locals and then headed to the Brown Bull. At this point in the evening the amount I had had to drink, and the short time that I had drank it in, were really starting to make me feel quite drunk and I was having real difficulty walking properly. If you were in the Brown Bull last Monday at about 6.00pm then I apologise for drunkenly walking in, taking a few photos, not speaking to anyone, (that I can remember), and staggering back out again without even buying a drink. Sorry

Unfortunately thats not the worst of it.

I then decided to try and walk off the drink by walking back to Howwood, by castle Semple Loch, by the river, through the trees, along a completely ice covered cycle track, in the dark. As youve probably guessed, this didn't go too well. I got lost quite quickly and ended up in some fields, got stuck on a barbed wire fence, (completely ripping my jeans), and was very disorientated. Luckily I saw a land mark that I recognised, (it was an old folly on top of a hill), I knew that this was close to the track I wanted and I was heading in the right direction as it is also close to the Howwood road. At this point my phone went and it was Christine asking where I was, I told her, at first she went mad at me and then she calmd down and said she would drive along the road towards the cycle track. Half an hour later I was in the car being taken back to the farm, where I was sent to bed. The following morning I had a lot of apologies to make, I also had a hangover that could kill a horse.

We left Howwood on the Wednesday afternoon and headed home. We had a restfull day on the Thursday as I was working on the Friday, hogmany. I am an audio visual technician, but I also work occasionaly as a camera man at large events. Edinburgh has the largest hogmany party in the world and I was working as camera operator No1 on the Waverly stage. There were four bands on this stage including "The Coral" and "Newton Fauklner". I love working at this event as I think I get one of the best seats in the house ! Check out the video below, this is how I brought in the new year.

It Is a great way to bring in the new year and I really enjoyed working at this event. Although, I didn't get home till about 3.45 am and was tired on new years day.

With the festive holidays nearly over and people starting to get back into a working frame of mind, I decided to go for one more night out. In my home town of Broxburn, at my local, The Masonic. Check out the video below, which was filmed at closing time just as we were leaving.

Have a great start to 2011 !!!

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A Sunday Afternoon in Edinburgh

New Year - New Start

Bringing In The New Year

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