auchmeddan

Having been among the last people on Earth to read “The Da Vinci Code” I was very interested when Jules suggested we take a trip out to Rosslyn Chapel before we we left. Jules, my mum, and myself headed out there this week and spent a fascinating couple of hours wandering around and taking pictures. The Chapel isn’t a large building, but it has so many points of interest and incredible carvings that I wasn’t prepared to leave until I’d burned out my camera battery.

If you ever get the chance to go take a large memory stick and spare batteries!

A couple of pics below from the Chapel - The Green Man, and the Apprentice’s Pillar.

Jules and myself took some time last week to get around a few places we wanted to see before we go. We managed to get in a climb up the Scott Monument, a walk past the Art Gallery, up through Lady Stairs Close and on to see the tribute to Greyfriars Bobby, a visit to Bobby’s grave in the cemetary, and a quick trip through the National Museum of Scotland. By the time we’d finished we were tired and hungry, so we ended up with a good lunch (and a couple of beers for me) in a bar on the Mound.

We ended up the night out with friends and came second in the pub quiz before getting home and eating re-heated Haggis around 2AM. Does it get any better than this?

Photos below of Bobby, and the view from the Scott Monument overlooking the Castle and the Art Gallery.

We are definately into our final days of catching up with people now. We just saw someone that we haven’t seen since 2002, and my aunt and uncle called from Canada tonight to have a quick chat and wish us well. Have a few more nights to organise, then we’re off. I’m sure we’ll both be wiped out by the time we get to NZ.

Managed to get down to Easter Road on Sunday with Malc to watch the Hibs vs Rangers game, and was very happy I went! I think I’m a good omen for the team as I’ve been to ‘the Leith San Siro’ twice this year and both games have been 2-1 victories. Having been to the Hibs supporters bar before and after the game I was in a very good mood Sunday night, but unfortunately my luck didn’t extend to the Miami Dolphins who suffered an embarassment at the hands of the Bills and notched up their 2nd defeat in a row.

Oh, and I’m taking the fact that both Hibs goals were scored by Kiwi Striker Chris Killen as a good omen.

We haven’t updated for a while as time has just started to slip away from us now. In three weeks time we’re going to be in New Zealand. Scary!

The Edinburgh Film Festival ended pretty well for us with “The Oh in Ohio”, an interesting documentary called “The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief” and Kevin Smith’s “Clerks 2″ which was one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. I love Jay’s Buffalo Bill/Silence of the Lambs bit, but the deconstruction of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was probably the biggest crowd pleaser.

Now that Edinburgh has calmed down a bit with the end of the Festival I’ll need to try and get around the town to take some pictures and visit a couple of places I just couldn’t face in a huge crowd of tourists. It will be nice to spend some time in the city before we leave, revisiting some old haunts.

We’ve been lucky the last few days and haven’t seen a bad movie since “Destricted”. We’ve had a good run with “Neo Ned”, “Colour Me Kubrick” and “12 and Holding” on Saturday, and “Wristcutters: A Love Story” and “The Treatment” on Monday.

Saturday was especially fun for me as we got to see good movies AND hang out in the Cameo Bar all day. “Colour Me Kubrick” was quite funny and was full of well known British actors in various small roles - spotting them was part of the fun. There were also a few clever references to other Kubrick movies, and a show stealing entrance by Jim Davidson which was one of the film’s highlights.

In the evening we watched our 2nd feature starring Jeremy Renner, “12 and Holding“. An interesting coming of age drama revolving around a trio of 12 year olds, this was entertaining and disturbing in equal measure.

Monday we caught “Wristcutters: A Love Story” at the Cameo. Jules really enjoyed this movie, while I thought it was pretty good but not one of my faves. In the evening we caught “The Treatment“, which I really enjoyed despite the fact that the lead actor was previously in “The Gilmore Girls”. Ian Holm had all the best lines as a sadistic psychoanalyst but my favourite performance was from Famke Janssen who, given the chance at a serious role, turned out to be a great actress.

Shannyn Sossamon and Patrick Fugit in “Wristcutters”

An incredibly simple love story about two star-crossed lovers who meet in a mental hospital : a neo-nazi who was involved in a hate crime and a young black girl who believes she has Hitler’s soul inside her.

Making you laugh out loud one minute then choking back tears the next, Neo Ned is now our favourite movie so far in the film festival and maybe even the best film I’ve seen so far this year. The film is carried by two incredible leads who you find yourself emotionally attached to in no time at all, and deserve the credit for making this film so accessible. Jeremy Renner’s performance in this film is out of this world and Gabrielle Union is superb.

There was a Q&A at the end of the movie with the Director (Van Fischer), Producer (Mark Borman), and Jeremy Renner present - all of whom received resounding applause from the audience. It’s just a shame Gabrielle Union wasn’t there to ogle at

Jeremy Renner was so good in the film that we bought tickets for his other movie in the Festival, “12 and Holding”, which was showing later on the same day.

The day started well with “Snow Cake” - a very well-acted character study starring Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Ann Moss. It was a moving and humourous movie which Jules and myself both enjoyed a lot. The Director’s Q&A at the end was also very entertaining.

The evening movie was “Destricted” - 5 short movies about sex and pornography. There were 2 good episodes - a short 2 minute montage and Larry Clark’s entry around “gonzo” pornography. The rest of the running time was just a sausagefest. From the opening 5 minute (? - it felt like eternity) shot of a flaccid penis becoming hard I knew some of this movie was going to be awful. I had no idea though that most of the running time was going to be film of guys jerking off! They should have just called the movie “cock, cock, and more cock!”. I think the entire audience was bored into a coma as I didn’t hear a single positive comment as people exited (with the exception of praise for Larry Clark).

We saw the World Premiere of “Holly” last night and the movie was so good that it’s the first time I’ve ever bothered to go vote for a film at the Internet movie database.

Although “Holly” is sombre in tone it is very well done and the central performances are excellent (especially Thuy Nguyen as Holly). I hope this raises awareness for the K-11 Project and they can somehow make some changes to the child-sex industries in Cambodia and Vietnam.

I’m not sure that any other movie we see at the film festival will be able to top this.

We saw the international premiere of the movie “Apart from That” last night at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Apart from about 4 minutes the movie was an exercise in tedium that robbed us of almost two hours of our lives. The directors were coming in at the end of the movie for a Q&A session but I couldn’t wait to leave the cinema. I usually love hearing a director talk about filming but this was such a dull, poorly shot movie that I had no interest at all. The very forced use of “artistic” camera techniques such as out of focus, long shots of characters in conversation, and too close close-ups made it look like a student film and worked together to cause eye-strain and headaches.

I wish we’d just stayed in the bar. I hope the movie we’re seeing tonight “Holly” is better. At least it appears like it will have a story and purpose.

Morag arranged an afternoon out to Vogrie with the kids, my mum and her mum. In the morning I thought it was going to be rained off but the nearer we got to Vogrie the brighter the sun got.

Mum had to meet dad to drop off some tools so she met us later along with Morag’s mum. When we got there Kimberly, Rachel and Joshua all set off running for the park, Morag and I not quite as enthusiastic about the whole thing just walked. Once there the first thing I spotted was the swings, felt like a kid all over again and practically bolted to them. Kimberly, Rachel and I all got on and started swinging for all we were worth. The swings are all set in a circle so when you swing forward all your feet end up together in the middle. Of course this means that we were all trying to kick one another.

Next up was the trampolines where Morag and I tried our best to knock the kids off. It’s set up as lots of little trampolines strung together with rope, pretty cool. While down there my mum and Auntie Doreen (doesn’t seem right to call Morag’s mum just Doreen) showed up with Murphy (my Mum’s Border Collie).

We headed back to the main park where we spun and flung the kids all over the place. Both the mums sat at the side chatting away and probably laughing at Morag and I running around like idiots. Kimberly challenged Morag and I to leap frog the pillars in the park. Kimberly although much smaller than us had no problems leaping over all 6 of them. Rachel gave it her best shot and did them all by jumping, sitting then sliding off. Morag almost head butted the next pillar in the line so stopped at just one. I decided to go for it and to my surprise I managed them fine. Think my mum was just as surprised as I was that I didn’t trip and end up flat on my back. Much fun was had by all.

While having our mid afternoon refreshments I remembered I had the camera on me and got it out to get a few photos of the kids, the best two are below. It was a great afternoon out and I look forward to our day out to North Berwick next week.