Hayley and Niki's Adventures: December 2007

Seasons Greetings

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! We are definitely missing friends and family (and sunshine) at this time of year! We had Christmas dinner with a few of Niki's workmates which was fun. One of the girls cooked a massive roast turkey and all the trimmings all by herself, legendary! We look forward to pavalova and all the other kiwi treat next Christmas!

I'm in the middle of uploading lots of photos to our web albums and am trying to sift through the mounds of pics and put the 'interesting' ones into an album 'highlights of bus-about trip' in case anyone is bored and feels like seeing what we have been up to!

Apart from that here's a pic of me on St Andrews Day and one of Niki taken last weekend when we did a spot of "mountain" climbing with Debra Fish... Niki slipped on his butt 3 times! haha! (Not so funny when I fall over of course)

Had a temp assignment as a receptionist for mortgage brokers for Thurs 27th and Fri 28th Dec which I was stoked about as I didn't think I'd get any work over Christmas. So I got up at 7.30am this morning and went to work, only to discover that the guy had been given the wrong key and anyone with the correct key was on holiday! So I got sent home and he was going to work from another branch! Bit poos, but my agency said I'll get paid for today at least as it wasn't my fault, so I guess that's pretty cool! And I guess I'll get a phone call if they need me tomorrow after all.

Wishing everyone a very HAPPY NEW YEAR! Party Hard =) We will be at the Hogmanay Street Party! (well, I will be, Niki has to work! Typical! but it sounds like he'll have fun there anyway) xo

BASTARDS

Some not very nice people have used our debit card details to purchase items online!! www .kiddicare.com (wtf?) and some bus travel by the looks…£170 in total. GRRRR! We have had to cancel our cards and report it to the fraud department. The money should be refunded within the week and new cards issued, so it's more just a big inconvenience and rather upsetting (In true Hayley style I burst into tears when I found out!).

Scottish Happenings

Finally getting around to blog about what we have been up to for the past 6 weeks! As you know we are now based in Edinburgh and plan to stay here until mid-to-late February at this stage. Niki is working in a bar and I am doing temp secretarial work. It took a few weeks for me to get a job but I've now had work for the last 3.5 weeks. The next 2 weeks I'll probably be off again though because of Christmas and New Years holidays.

Meanwhile we have a great flat which is within walking distance of town (35mins) so we save £2 each a day on bus fares! Scrimping and saving as we do not earn nearly as much as we did in London. We are still glad we came here though, everyone is a lot friendlier, the city centre is lovely and at the moment they have the Winter Wonderland up and running which is gorgeous! Ferry lights, Christmas markets, ferris wheel, outdoor ice skating rink etc etc. It's neat to see bagpipers busking and the Scottish accent is great!

I can't remember everything we've done so far but in brief: Julie (from my old work) came to visit which was great, we went on a walking tour, attended a ceilidh (pronounced "kay lee") a Scottish dance night - loads of fun, but very tiring! and met her couch host and couchsurfing contacts, which was invaluable as I've since joined up and been along to a few things the Edinburgh Group has organised, including the St Andrews Day Celebrations, movie night at the Brass Monkey (pub), fortnightly pub catch-up and a night out partying for a leaving party! Excellent way to meet people.

Today, Debra Fish (a friend from school) arrives from NZ for a week or so before moving to Dublin! I'm sooo excited =)

Hope everyone's organised with Christmas shopping etc etc!