Murrayfield

One of the things that I was determined to do on our UK trip was to see the All Blacks play over here. Through a NZ website linked to AllBlacks.com, NZers can buy tickets for the games over here and be in the section where tickets are allocated to NZ. We went for this option as it meant that we didn’t miss out on tickets, although we realised that we would be sitting at the end of the ground or in the corners. Not my favourite viewing spot, but then if I simply wanted a great view, I should stay home and watch it on the telly. Anyway, tickets sorted, on Friday night we headed to King’s Cross station for our 6pm train to Edinburgh.

On embarking on the train we found ourselves seated in a very lively area of the train. There was a group of Newcastle football fans who were on their way back from Bruge. Apparently it very exciting for Newcastle to play in Europe and so their fans went along to support. While their team managed a 2-2 draw, they had certainly been celebrating for a bigger occasion. At our table were Adam and Johnny, a couple of 20ish lads who were quite quiet, and had done most of their celebrating the previous night. At the table opposite, were Keith & Richard and Andrew & Paula. Richard was a big guy with tattoos who doesn’t drink. It seemed that he had been the person trying to keep them all in line on the trip. Keith was your stereotypical Geordie 40-something who had seemingly been propping up bars all the way from Bruge. He was very amusing though. He greeted everyone around us, and made some pretty suggestive and inappropriate comments to everyone. It was all very playful, which was good because he was throwing around F&Cs like they were going out of fashion, and I don’t mean fish & chips. He kept us amused for a long time, but eventually it started to wear a bit thin. Luckily there was a spare seat further down the carriage with some of his mates and he went and visited them to give us some respite.

Andrew was a Scotsman, but his partner Paula grew up in Oamaru. For those not following the story closely, that was one of the places that Siobhan spent a period of her childhood too. While that was coincidental, at least they weren’t neighbours and weren’t in Oamaru at the same time. This story was the source of huge mirth for Keith, however, who was sure that they were related through some combination of mothers and aunties. Andrew & Paula were on their way up to Edinburgh for the rugby too. Once we passed Newcastle and let the Newcastle lads off, another NZ guy moved seats and joined us and we had a great chat. He was also from Wellington. By this stage we had been on the train for 3 hours at least, and the wine was starting to take its toll on Paula. She became a useful stand-in for Keith but not quite as funny. While some of the comments were a bit cringe-worthy, I’d have to say that I probably haven’t laughed so hard for a long time either. By the time we rolled into Edinburgh at 10.30pm we were well ready to get off the train though.

Getting a taxi to Nicola’s was pretty straightforward. Luckily she had left the pub and just made it home before us. It was good to see her again and to catch up.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, but there was a bit of a dark cloud for Siobhan as she injured her ankle somehow. We are not quite sure what was wrong with it. It wasn’t twisted or sprained, but there must have been some sort of pinched nerve of something as it kept giving her shooting pains when she walked – and was particularly bad going down stairs. Anyway, we decided that we would head out and try and make the most of the great weather. The first stop was brunch at the Dome. I’m sure we will have posted photos of it last time we were in Edinburgh, and it really is one of the places that you have to stop at in Edinburgh. At this time of year, it is covered in Christmas decorations and they are really spectacular. We passed it a few times during the day and so I have photos of the outside in different light. 

Nicola & Siobhan outside the Dome

Inside, the decorations are even more amazing. They have an enormous Christmas Tree which is beautifully decorated, and has thousands of little LED lights on it. All of the pillars are wrapped with swirling wreaths of green stuff, once again with little lights. In the wrong hands this could have been Christmas overload and very tacky, but these guys have real style and the result is a Christmas Wonderland. I’m starting to see what everyone is saying about a winter Christmas being a “proper” Christmas. I’m not yet convinced, as I think that the Christmas BBQ in fine warm weather will take some beating. But the fact that you can turn on your Christmas lights to full effect at 4.30pm is kinda cool. 

Green tree

And then it turned blue!

We were supposed to be meeting Nicola’s friend Sarah at the dome, but she also had a guest from London come up to watch the rugby and they hadn’t made it up to meet us at 11. So we had lunch and then took pity on Siobhan and caught a taxi up to the Old Town. 

With the Christmas tree at the back of the Dome

It was nice having a wander around up here again. Last time we were in Edinburgh they were getting the Castle ready for the Tattoo and there was temporary grandstand seating everywhere. It was all gone and we could take in the views all around the Castle. Because I was wearing my All Blacks jacket, we got stopped by one of the many officials wandering around outside the Castle asking us if we’d just seen the All Blacks. They were staying at a hotel part way down the Royal Mile and had not long previously been wandering out and about signing autographs. We must have just missed them, as they had then been bussed away somewhere to watch the England v Fiji match. We were trying to get away from this guy (who was very keen and enthusiastic about his rugby which is great to see) when another guy in a NZ shirt turned up with a photo. Piri, Cory and Aaron Smith had been signing autographs with fans filing in behind them to have their picture taken with them. Aaron got called away from the table to answer some media questions so this guy (who was wearing an old school AB’s jersey) had asked Piri if he could sit at the table. Piri said yes, and so this random guy got a seat at the table and people were getting their photos taken with Cory, Piri and random guy. He was stoked though.

On the way back down the Royal Mile, Nicola said that we had to go down on of the side-streets and get a photo of something. As Siobhan’s ankle was giving her grief, Nicola and I went and got the photo, while Siobhan headed into a shop as it was starting to spit to rain. When we came back from getting the photo, Siobhan was lining up the purchase of a rather nice green corduroy jacket. We had barely been gone 5 mins and she had had a shopping frenzy. 

We then headed a bit further down the road to The Real Mary King’s Close. It is an underground tour that shows how the Old Town has developed over the years. Unfortunately, instead of showing you the layer of building upon building, where new buildings have been built on top of others, they have come up with a story involving people and ghosts to keep people entertained. There is a smattering of history in there too, but not enough for my liking. Instead the whole thing was really dimly lit so you couldn’t see much, except for the occasional dodgy mannequin diorama which was either a murder or something to do with the plague. The only redeeming feature was that our tour was led by a Sarah Michelle Gellar look-alike, who had a really cool Irish accent. 

After the tour, it was really quite wet outside and getting dark. At 4pm. So we grabbed another taxi back to the Dome in the hope of catching up with Sarah (Nic’s friend – not the Sarah Michelle Gellar look-alike). Everyone had that idea though, and there was a lengthy queue to get in. We decided to go next door instead, although briefly saw Sarah and decided to meet up before the rugby for lunch on Sunday. 

Daylight

Getting darker...4pm

Fully dark - not long after 5pm

At The Dirty Martini Bar in Le Monde Hotel, we had a couple of cocktails which was a nice way to warm up against the cold. Seeing as Siobhan didn’t have any cocktails to numb the pain in her ankle, we had to get another taxi back to Nicola’s. 

The Le Monde Hotel next to the Dome

We left Siobhan there and went to get some beer and ingredients so that I could make quiche for dinner. I made it for Nic when we were last up there and apparently she’s been raving about it ever since. Nic’s flatmate, Danni, had been promised that I would make quiche since early in the week, and even in the brief time when we met Sarah, she told me that I had to go home and cook quiche otherwise the girls would be disappointed. We got the ingredients and went to this little boutique beer and wine shop. It cracked me up to see Tui in their World Beer section. A little taste of home. I couldn’t bring myself to buy it though. We also got some really runny brie and some smoky cheese at the cheese shop just up the road, so we had something to snack on while I exercised my culinary skills.

Back at Nic’s the quiche got safely made and the cheese was delicious. We had an interesting evening sitting around watching music videos on YouTube.

Sunday dawned a bit Groundhog Day, being brilliantly fine again. This was a pleasant surprise after the rainy previous evening. As Nic and Danni had said that they weren’t getting up until 10 at the earliest, we got up and I went and got coffee. There was a great little café that has opened up about 100 metres from Nicola’s flat called Peter’s Yard. It made great coffee and looked to have a range of great organic food. But I didn’t get any of that as Nic was making us porridge. With a spurtle. Apparently, “spurtle” is Scottish for “stick”. Instead of using a wooden spoon to stir the porridge, the Scots use a stick. I couldn’t complain too much though, as it was great porridge. Not sure if this was due to the spurtle but it was nice anyway.

After trying to get hold of Sarah about where to meet up for lunch, we decided to head into the train station to drop off our bags. The interweb had said that you could leave you bags there for £7 a bag. While a bit steep, it was probably cheaper than getting a taxi back to Nic’s after the game and then getting the taxi to take us to the train station. The only thing that the interweb didn’t tell you about was the really long queue for people wanting to drop off bags. It looked like their busiest day for a long time. Once the bags were dropped off, we went and had some lunch giving up on meeting Sarah. She texted apologising during lunch. Apparently they had gone out on Saturday night and not got back until 4am. We’d have struggled to make lunch if we’d been out until then too.

We then headed to Princes Street and caught the bus to Murrayfield. There were a number of kiwis on the bus and it was already a good atmosphere. The Stadium was pretty huge and impressive as we were walking towards it. And the crowd was pretty sizeable too. Murrayfield holds nearly 70,000 and that is a lot of people when they are converging on one place. It was easy getting in though. No bag search or anything. And when we got in there, they sell beer in glass bottles. Given the stories you see about football fans, they clearly have a different standard of supporter for rugby. Or maybe it is just that most of them are supporting Scotland. Most of the banter from the Scottish fans was how much the All Blacks were going to win by, and then hoping for either some sublime All Blacks play or for Scotland to put up a fight.

Our seats weren’t as bad as I expected. A number of people had said that there isn’t a bad seat in Murrayfield and I think that they are right. While I like watching rugby from between the 22 and halfway, we were sitting in the corner of the ground. But it was great seeing the All Blacks run out onto the field and do the haka. The national anthems were a real contrast – they had no one leading them, and so the NZ one had started before anyone really knew and it was a bit subdued and confused with some people singing in Maori and some in English. And we only got one verse. But when the Scottish anthem started, the whole Stadium erupted in song and it was great to hear and feel. They are really passionate about their rugby up here.

The game was a bit average really. We looked like a team that had made 10 changes to its starting line-up from the last outing. Some of the combinations didn’t gel as well as we have come to expect. And the opening try was scored by Scotland. Their backs were lurking in our backline and took an intercept to score. Hard to blame them, the Scots backs weren’t getting great ball from their forwards, but Dan Carter’s pass really put them away. Normal transmission resumed after that, with Israel Dagg, Cory Jane and Andrew Hore all scoring tries. The second half finished with the Scots hot on attack though, and denied a try by the video ref. It was tough to call but I would have given it to them. The ref played a penalty advantage though, and they tapped and ran and scored anyway. It was good seeing them giving us a real go. I expected that our defence would be too much for them and that they wouldn’t get through. When the Scots came out after halftime and scored again, I was starting to get a little nervous. We were playing very average – basic errors – kicks out on the full etc, and Adam Thompson was sent to the bin for rucking someone’s head. It didn’t look very inadvertent to me – but at least the ball came out from very close to there – it might be the only thing that saves him in front of the judiciary. That is if he survives his meeting with the coaching team first as Mr Hansen did not appear very impressed at all when they showed him on the big screen.

Anyway, we won 51-22.  We didn’t deserve to put 50 points on them – they played really well. We didn’t play all that well yet managed to score 50 points – I guess that says something too.

On leaving the ground Siobhan’s foot wasn’t that much better, but the buses were nowhere to be seen. A policeman told us that it would be quicker to walk than to go to where the buses were going from. So we walked towards the Haymarket station. Once there, the queues were so long that we decided to carry on on-foot as standing waiting for a train would likely be worse. The good thing was that not far up the road we got yet another taxi and made it to the train station. This was all good and we got onto the train without any problems. 

Our coach seemed to be largely full of contented kiwis heading back to London after a long weekend. And it was very peaceful until we stopped at Newcastle and some old Geordie gits got on the train. On Friday they were funny. Late Sunday afternoon / evening they are not. And we had to put up with them right through to London.  We got into King’s Cross at 10.45 and then had to catch the tube to Waterloo and then get the train to Woking. While we had had another really great weekend, the final twist of fate was that one of the old Geordie gits was on our train back to Woking. At least he just acknowledged us and went and sat in another carriage. We got home just after midnight for a very long day.