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Dooking Makes Us Loony


"The Firth of Forth is the estuary or firth of Scotland's River Forth where it flows into the North Sea between Fife to the north and Lothian to the south." - Wikipedia


That was, in fact, not the latest tongue twister but a description of the place we spent New Year's Day.

Now that we've cleared that up, join me for by far the most ridiculous and masochistic thing in which I have ever willingly participated.

Loony Dook is the Hogmanay Festival's New Years' Day celebrations, set a few kilometres out of Edinburgh at...the Firth of Forth. We've been through this. Keep up.

It basically consists of dressing up in dumb clothes and running into the freezing Scottish sea.

Yeah.

And in extra hilarious, sadistic fashion, the weather was the worst we'd seen it yet - freezing, gloomy and drizzling.

Are you ready?

Good, 'cos we weren't.

First up was parking our car and walking through the tiny, pretty waterside town which was great except for the glacial apocalypse.


Getting registered. Got a silly wristband which made us look like hospital patients - possibly just making our hypothermia treatment easier? 

This looks like fun. 

Ah. It's a bit nippy. 

So all the Dookers (the title for the people who are doing the thing, and who are coincidentally also completely loony, thus the name of the event) meet up for a parade through the teeny tiny glacial town, which is apparently a big thing, and soon hundreds of people were gathering on the streets.



Life savers! This is comforting. 

 Have some dogs. 



The parade!

As we got closer we could hear the beatings of a traditional Scottish drumming band to the side - teh get ye inteh teh mood ye wee lassie okay no really I'll stop that now. 

ye wee lassie



'Murica


You thought I was joking about dressing up. I was not. 








And us? Well we didn't exactly have room in our suitcases for exciting dress ups, but we made do. 
Except for a long time we were too scared to take our coats off. Remember the glacial thing? And the rainy thing? And the Scotland in midwinter thing? Yeah. 


This happened though, so I feel like we deserve a thousand brownie points and hot chocolates:


Good god.


Then we...stripped off.

-saxaphone music- 

Bit of Aussie representation. 

I hate myself. 

They were Aussies also - hating themselves as well. 



This bloke who crashed my selfie looked boring but he was actually rocking a fluro yellow tutu so it's okay. 


When I first put on my sandals it was stupidly freezing. But...you got used to it? I don't even know how to explain it. It just wasn't that cold. So by the time I had to strip off, it really wasn't bad as expected. Human survival instincts down to a fine art? Quite possibly. 

The parade starts!
Look I got a video for you, how good am I:



Now it's just properly raining thanks Scotland

Heeeeeere we go!


shit shit shit shit shit shits hit shit shit shtiwsfsslkdja;dlkfja;sldk


Not only that but it's a brITISH LIE BEACH WHERE IT IS NOT REALLY A BEACH IT IS A PILE OF DEATH PEBBLES. 


NOOOOOO.

The Sadists.

The Masochists.

Before.

After: the idiots. 


Got another vid. Real time. You're welcome. #screaming


You know what I was saying before about it being not that cold?

That didn't apply in the slightest to actually being in the water.

Oh, numb legs! Oh, the pain when the numbness goes that one step too far! 


Evil.





Hurrah!



While I was quaking in my boots, there were heaps of photographers around for local (and some not so local oh god) papers that got some fab shots of other Dookers.

I would be remiss as a blogger of the times if I did not share these gems with you.




Oh yes. 
Back out on dry land lol jk. 

There was also no where to change, so a very brisk walk back to the car in wet clothes to either scrape it all off in the confines of the back seat or just flash people our undies (or both!). 


Have you ever truly experienced the wonder that is dry underwear? I want to be the prophet and spread the Gospel of Dry Underwear. Seriously underrated.

Driving back down the country now...until next time... 

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