Beltane Festival and Olivia's here!

Monday night after work we rugged up in several layers and headed over to Calton Hill with a big group of mates and people from our hostel to the Beltane Fire Festival. It’s a pagan festival to welcome in summer and is always celebrated on the 30th of April. I think they normally get 12000 but because it was on a Monday this year there were only around 8000 (only! It felt like more!). There is a big parade/procession around the grounds of Calton Hill which has stunning views over the city and Leith as well. Calton Hill is like a big hilly park with lots of random old monuments and buildings, it’s very beautiful but absolutely freezing (the procession starts around 9pm and finishes at 1, then a party goes until 4am. We only made it to just after midnight, we all had work the next day!). If anyone’s interested in the story of the procession, here you go:
The procession begins on the Acropolis where a neid fire is lit. The sacred flame reveals the May Queen. With the Horned God and her White Woman Warriors she is guided by the Blue Men through the Fire Arch into the underworld, awakening and uniting the elements of Air, Earth, Water and Fire. When the circuit of the hill is almost complete, the court is ambushed by the lustful and chaotic Red Men. But they are repelled by the order and power of the White Women. The celebrations climax when the Horned God touches the May Queen. He is then stripped of his winter coat and reborn as the Green Man, the first new growth of the coming Summer. He is crowned by the May Queen and they light a sacred bonfire to burn the old and bring in the new. The festival ends with the coming together of White and Red in a courtly dance.
In short, it’s just a lot of near naked people covered in red, blue, green or white paint dancing around and playing with fire. Top night! My photos didn’t turn out spectacularly so here’s a link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/6610507.stm

And a report on the night that covers the story a lot better than what I did and has the best picture of the night, giant human pyramid (they tried to do it twice but the girl at the top couldn’t stand up fully before falling down. They better get it right next year!):
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=388&id=671832007

In other news, Olivia is here in Edinburgh! She, Steve and Rosemary (Steve’s Mum) are going to a wedding here on Friday. We caught up last night after work and took them out for a ghost tour, a few drinks, laughs and catchups. Livvy has lots of funny stories about her travels around Europe and is such a good storyteller. We’ve still got a few more days with them which is awesome. I’ve picked up an extra day of work on Saturday because I wrongly assumed that the wedding would be on a Saturday but Fridays are very popular to have weddings here as places book out years in advance on Saturdays. Never mind, it’s a public holiday here on Monday so I’ll still get a full weekend. Another update in a few days x.