Christmas and Hogmanay

The lead up to Christmas was pretty full on. Two couples left just before the busy patch so those of us remaining were on a pretty punishing rota.

We participated in a pre-Christmas curry/quiz night which we did OK in given that our team of four had three Aussies on it and the questions were rather UK centric.

On Christmas eve (Christmas day Aussie time) Adam closed the bar and we stayed in Kris and Marine's flat where our computer decided to catch a cold of some description throwing our internet connection into disarray (still not what it was). Our phone also died but has since been replaced, 20 quid for a new phone!! Should have done it ages ago!

Christmas day was funny because just about everyone there were staff that have been at the hotel for ages and most of us had been there for the previous Christmas. It wasn't really as happy a lunch as the previous year but as we all sat around for the afternoon and relaxed together it started to feel a bit more Christmasy. Three dozen oysters that we got for free off a local went down very nicely for dinner as well.

The week between Christmas and Hogmanay was a blur of long, long shifts leading up to a somewhat hellish floor shift for Eva on New Year's (finished at 11:35, back down all dressed up with Champagne in hand at 11:43) and a long night serving drinks for Adam.

New Year's Day Adam had to work a few hours before we came back to join in the Ceilidh (pronounced Kay-ley) a traditional Scottish dance which saw us all joining in. It was a lot of fun getting pushed around, kicked and flung by the Scots who knew what they were doing.

Photos: Adam about to play desk skittles over the remains of our oysters, We all spent hours trying to teach Monika to play glasses to no avail, The Christmas quiz scoreboard- we were the Custard Apples and we got 10/10 in food and drink!, The stylish George staff on Hogmanay