As the festival winds down to a close, the workload becomes lighter. This is good because it leaves more time for me to relax. So, after compliling my last feature for the Evening News, I returned to the flat, to discover my flatmates purchasing, what looked like, all the alcohol Edinburgh has to offer. Beer cans occupying every space in the fridge, wine bottles poking out of a every crack in the floor, and vodka bottles on every window sill in the flat.
This was going to be a good night.

2 hours later, my flatmate Nerea had invited every Spanish person in Edinburgh to the house, and with me and my other flatmate, Mike, being non-Spanish, (English and Irish respectively) we decided to ingratiate ourselves into the conversation, which mainly consisted of 'Que?' and a lot of exaggerated shrugs, with our bottom lip drooping in a cartoon manner.

I can't really remeber much else, to be honest. I do recall bumping into well known stand-up comic, Tim Minchin, at a burger shop, late on in the evening. It was weird because he came ambling over to Nerea, Mike and myself, and made a wisecrack about something. But a split second later, Mike and myself burst out laughing, only for Minchin to abruptly leave. I'm not sure if we insulted him or not. I hope not. I was too drunk to remember. Although, Mike is having some flashbacks to the night, and is certain he said 'YOU BOLLOCKS!', to Minchin's joke. For the record, Minchin is NOT a bollock. He's a top quality comedian, who just happened to have an unfortuante encounter with two drunk gits.

Staggering back to the flat at 6am, I flopped onto my bed, only to hear Nerea (who is a formidable 24/7 party machine), shout outside my bedroom door, 'Sam! We are going to a punk festival on an island tomorrow, are you coming?' To which I drukenly replied, 'Bruuuuulllgh!' She assumed this meant - 'Why, of course I will partake in this splendid punk festival. '

9am I rolled out of bed with a hangover I can't describe with mere words. My head just wanted to jetison off my neck and run to the hills. But I had made a drunken promise, of sorts, the night before, and I was determined to go to this punk festival on an island. The plan was that Nerea, Mike and myself would get a bus that would take us to Camford Island, and meet up with her Spanish friends at the festival. Simple? Like hell it was. The bus journey was incredibly long, and when we finally reached our destination, we discovered we were on the site of waste disposal depot. We asked the driver the direction to the festival sight, to which he shuddered and stroked his whispy white beard. I half expected him to say: 'Ye had better turn back, for no-one has ever mentioned that island's name...AND LIVED!' But what he did say was a bit of a worry. He looked each of us in the eye - he doesn't have 3 eyes, by the way. What I mean is he looked at us one at a time - and he said in a stern voice: ' You better hurry, the tide is rising, and you don't want to get stuck and rescued by the Coastguard, do you?'
We nodded.
'DO YOU?!' he asked again, clearly wanting a verbal response.
We all mumbled our agreement.
So with the bus-drivers chilling message still ringning in our ears, we did the most sensible thing we could think of, and legged it towards the sea, hoping we could sprint across the small pathway that was soon to be submerged by the rough seas. We failed our task.
Nerea and Mike wrenched off their shoes and socks, rolled up their jean, and bombed across the pathway, which, already, had water covering it. I did the same, but it appeared I was the only one who applied some logic to this predicament, because whilst they were running ahead of me, I could see that their ankles were already submerged, and we still had a good mile of pathway ahead of us. So, at the rate we were going, we would be running along the seabed by the time we got to the end of the pathway. Therefore, I stopped running after 1 minute, realising the dangers involved in this, and shouted: 'Guys! I'm turning back. I think I would like to LIVE today.'
They stopped running. They looked perplexed at my statement. They looked at each other. Then at me. Then looked straight ahead at them. Then looked at me in unison, and did a kind of smile that would normally be followed with a faux-American style statement like: 'YOU GUUUUYS!'
Laughing, they walked back towards me, and we all laughed and joked how we nearly died a horrible and needless death.
To compensate for our wasted 2 hour journey, there and back, Nerea had an idea which was wise and profound: 'Let's get drunk!'.
She treated Mike and myself to a Spanish drink called - Calli-Majo. Which is red wine mixed with coca-cola. All I can say is that it is an aquired taste. But I was polite, and nodded my approval, whilst inspecting the bottle with a curious face. And that was what we did for the rest of the evening. Sat on the grass of West Princes Street Gardens , drinking this challenging Spanish concoction whilst listening to a wood-wind midget band from China. A good end to a turbulent day, I think.