"Do you miss not drinking?" Edinburgh part 2

Saturday. I wake up to The Blonde bringing me a cup of tea in bed with The Geordie behind her singing "We brought you teeeeeaaaaaaa!" I ask him what the fuck he's doing and he looks at me like I'm stupid and says,

"I'm singing the tea song." I don't question him any more.

We hang out in their room drinking tea piecing the night back together, I wonder exactly what I did to my fingers as the bruising is now quite impressive. They put the Comic Relief dancing programme on to catch up from the night before. Noel Fielding comes on doing his amazing Kate Bush routine.

The Geordie looks like he's been struck by the most amazing insight.

"PUFFIN! It's YOU! You look like Noel Fielding dressed as Kate Bush!"

I find this slightly complimentary since when I first saw him doing the routine I was sexually confused as I find him hot in real life, and found him to be an attractive woman. I'm not sure what this says about me.

We slowly get ready after haranguing the poor Geordie to go and get us brekkie from the local cafe, and head out again into town. We go to a bar. I bet no-one saw that coming, eh?

The rugby is on, we order brilliant Bloody Marys and settle in for the afternoon. The music is something ambient and mediocre. The Geordie pipes up again to me.

"This sounds like your sort of shit - it's got lots of 'wooooos' in it." The Blonde pisses herself and I glare at him. It seems unfair to engage in a serious music debate when he's at a natural disadvantage since he has the music taste of a thirteen year old girl.

The Blonde studies her Bloody Mary. "I love celery. I love cucumber. Is cucumber a vegetable?" I pat her on the head and we carry on with our conversation. As long as you humour her and feed her the occasional alcoholic beverage and packet of crisps, she's fine in public.

The Geordie studies the rugby and works out the implications of each team winning.

"That'll be good for England!" The Blonde exclaims brightly to every scenario he mentions.

"Are you just saying 'that'll be good for England' for every result I say?" he asks.

The Blonde smiles and nods brightly like a good little wife.

A new friend of mine, The Thinker, comes to meet us for a drink. He's not drinking so I am scared as to what he'll make of those two mentals, but it all goes very well. The Blonde chooses to divulge her waxing story within the first ten minutes of meeting him, and he doesn't run away so I'm satisfied he's not too scared. We get on to the subject of his teetotalism. The Blonde ponders,

"Do you miss not drinking?"

The Thinker and I look at each other.

"Do you mean, 'does he miss drinking'?"

The Blonde looks earnest.

"No, I mean, does he miss not drinking?"

"But he doesn't drink... how can he miss it when that's what he's doing - ie. NOT drinking?"

We go round in circles for a good half hour, I even draw a diagram of The Thinker WITH drinks and without drinks, and still she doesn't get it. She's a bright girl really, but this really foxed her.

I apologise to The Thinker for some of the lairy conversation. He says, having met me twice before, once on a thirtieth birthday party weekend in a big house,

"I now associate you with the nickname Spaz, being too wasted to play tabletennis with me, and now, intimate waxing stories."

Thanks chums. I say I'm embarrassed about being too inebriated to play ping pong very well.

"I didn't realise you were that drunk, I just thought you were REALLY REALLY shit at it."

We stop discussing my sporting ability and get on to chatting about the recent horrific events in Japan, and The Blonde contributes her stellar social opinion.

"Tsunamis are so powerful aren't they? It's scary. Do you think there'll be pirates?"

We all nod soberly.

She carries on.

"It makes me worry for us on our sailing holiday later in the year. I actually worry about pirates EVERY day you know."

We ignore her.

Later that evening, we meet up with other dear friends for an excellent night in The Standard. It involves feeling No'rn Ir'on's considerable breasts, doing her hair in the middle of the pub and The Grumpy Scot almost crying with laughter at the Modern Toss iPhone app while we're outside smoking. It also involves another horrific story of The Blonde and The Geordie's sex life.

"Oh Puffin, when you'd passed out in the spare room, The Geordie and I got a bit amorous. I normally have lube in my room but I'd put it away on account of you coming to stay. Well, it wasn't to hand so I used my Clarins Flashbalm."

We sit around looking horrified.

"It really DOES brighten and tighten!" she exclaims brightly.

Sunday morning I nick some of her Flashbalm in the bathroom in a hungover haze, then suddenly the story came back to me.

My face feels violated.

"I don't know how you're not in hip-hop." Edinburgh part 1

Ahhh, Edinburgh. Land of kilts, haggis, people wearing tweed and a 

group of endearing misfits I call my friends. It'd been far too long 
since my last visit so No'rn Ir'on and I booked it. And visit we did.

After a four hour journey where I mainly pondered what it was about 
trains that attracts the most bizarre social cross-section, I arrived 
and in typical style, headed to the lovely Queen's Arms to meet The 
Blonde. The Geordie came to meet us too and we grabbed ourselves a 
booth to have a good old catch up.

The Geordie, positioning himself in front of the tv screen:

"The cricket's on so I'm not interested in you for the next half hour, 
ok?"

He then proceeds to tell me ALL about the game while The Blonde was at 
the bar, while I wondered just how rude would it be to put my 
earphones in?

The Blonde comes back with Pinot and launches into a loudly graphic 
description of the intimate waxing module on her spa therapy course.

"So, I'm on all-fours, she's behind me with a spatula of hot wax and 
the whole class is looking up my foo-foo."

Suddenly, The Geordie shows a flicker of interest.

"Did you get your ass bleached too?!"

The Blonde ignores her husband and continues describing how it feels 
to have every hair from your genital and bottom regions removed in 
front of a gang of your classmates.

"Honestly, it was so painful, I could've done with a leather bit to 
bite down on."

The Geordie looks interested again.

"So, the teacher was showing us the Brazilian method and one girl in 
my class volunteered. She's a proper ginge. It was like a fish 
finger!" The Blonde continues gleefully.

We get to talking about her upcoming exams. I reassure her that she's 
totally capable and will pass with flying colours.

The Geordie sniggers, "You're handi-capable."

A fair bit of wine having been consumed at this point, we take a few 
snaps of our reunion. I lament one of them, saying I look awful.

The Blonde: "What don't you like about your face?"

Me: "It's spacky."

The Geordie: "CAZTARD!" 

Him and The Blonde collapse in giggles and high-five each other. The Blonde wipes tears from her eyes and suggests I tweet this. 

"Tweet it, don't delete it, innit!"

Me: "I don't know how you're not in hip-hop you know."

The Blonde: "I know! Me and my repartee. Repertoire. See?!"

We carry on drinking and chatting, punctuated by The Blonde panicking slightly while eating wasabi peas.

"I've dropped a pea in my scarf!" She rummages through her voluminous leopard-print scarf while The Geordie and I pretend we don't know her. 

We head back to their flat to get ready to go out (really not a great idea as we've had a skinful already.)The Blonde drags me into the bathroom, saying,

"Puffin, look at this!" I think she's about to show me some amazing new beauty product, but instead she drops her trousers and shows me the results of her intimate wax. I don't know where to look but utter the words,

"I can never unsee that!"

To get over the trauma, I carry on drinking wine while The Blonde does my makeup, showing off her new skills. As we head out again to meet friends in town, I say that I could be a model with the amazing makeup job she's done on my face.

"Yeah a model for Scope!" shouts The Geordie. 

After a blurry few more drinks in 99 Hanover Street, we decide to head back to Mr Tizz's house for music, food and more booze. I don't remember much past this point but apparently trapped my fingers in a door somewhere as they KILLED when I woke up Sunday. Apparently, Mr Tizz put Muse on the iPod at some point in the evening and I went on a drunken rant about how much I fucking hate Muse, Matt Bellamy and his smug pomposity. Apparently, Mr Tizz's face fell a bit. I don't recall.