Highlights from Halloween Weekend

On Friday, Matt and I visited the Royal Botanical Gardens off Inverleith Row. It was lovely, free, autumn fun.

Saturday was double the fun Halloween celebration with a visit to the Edinburgh Ward's Halloween party where we had our fill of chocolate biscuits, gummies, costume gawking and Michael Jackson's Thriller at full volume in the cultural hall. My favorite moment of that part of the evening came when a pint-sized lass dressed as a skeletal pict approached me, saw my cowboy boots (all that my costume really included) and asked in a shrill brogue "Are you a cowboy, then?" A sharp wee girl indeed.

Still, the best bit of the weekend, I have to say, was our City of the Dead ghost tour later that night. Now I have had some grand Halloweens, as my late eighties and early nineties childhood put me in a pre-trick-or-treating-paranoia era. Between that and some great parties and cult classic horror movie nights, I was a bit nervous to expect much from a coutry that just recently (and with great reservation) accepted trick-or-treating in lieu of "penny for the Guy" practices. But it turns out that just about the best place to have some real Halloween spirit and spook is Edinburgh.

Our tour started at a dark hour on the steps of the St. Giles Cathedral along the Royal Mile. At the start, our guide set a gritty scene of Edinburgh during the dark ages. Truly it was a great mix of humor, history and horror and even included some modest participation from Matt as "the bearded Mr. Balfour" who demonstrated a frenzied rat type of torture. Yep. It was grisly but somehow funny too...?

As our walk progressed, we ended up in Greyfriar's Kirkyard off George the IV street. The setting was marvelously spooky. Edinburgh's castle took on a fantastic Dracula air and the Dicksonian buildings turned Sweeney Todd in the dark views from the graveyard. It was wonderful. Needless to say, the ambiance lended itself well to listen to the grim tales of the Burke and Hare murders, McKenzie's poltergeist, and strange happenings in "the Coventers Prison". At the risk of sounding absurd, it was indeed some kind of Halloween nirvana...without the hot chocolate though.