Spooky Walk Remembered

All the ghoulish Halloween Tales reminded me of a Ghost Walk night out my colleagues and I had in Edinburgh one dark night some years ago. The plan was a ghost walk, dinner then the dancing I insisted on.

The ghost walk was a hoot, or at least I reckoned it was! My colleagues of a more nervous disposition were less convinced. We followed our guide round while listening to his tales of gore and yore and both of the team who had broken ankles tried to out do each other by proving how fast they could walk! They are both very competitive people and nearly knackered the rest of us with two functional legs who were trying to keep up.

It was a really good dark and atmospheric night and the guide was full of scary tales of the city's ghoulish past. I had to hold two of my colleagues hands on the way through the creepy, windy closes as the were both 'feart' and kept threatening to get a taxi to the restaurant to wait for the rest of us. The underground vaults at the end were very atmospheric but we didn't experience any phenomena which I was partly disappointed by and partly relieved about. However, I made sure I kept a close eye on the colleague who'd arranged the spooky tour as he was the very one I trusted least not to pull some stunt, broken ankle or not. I thought the tour was actually quite tame and tried to drum up some interest in us doing the Mary King's Close tour next but was met by pale faces and outright refusal by most of the group.

After a refreshing drink we headed off for dinner in a lovely Italian restaurant where I had to resurrect some schoolgirl language skills to explain to our lovely waiter who spoke virtually no English that I'd been given the wrong prawns. Replete after a great meal we headed off to go dancing but found the place was mobbed. A drunken girl, whose make up had melted and was not clinging to the original features she'd applied it to, staggered by the stairs and exclaiming it "was too hot and all the men were ugly". Trip Advisor she wasn't but after we managed to wangle ourselves into the place we realised she was bang on the money! Worse was the dance floor was the same size as a piece of plastic cheese. Four of us who are vertically challenged managed to weave our way to the bar then had to be extricated by one of our chaps before we got a drink as the rest of the group had decided to decamp somewhere quieter. I never did get to boogie that night.

After an incredibly circuitous journey home the cherry on the pie as I crept in the door at 4.30am was finding the results of my dissertation were waiting for me and I'd passed!