First one was the Jan '09 gathering.

As a professional gambler, a couple of big punts had come off for me earlier in the year -2008...I won around 3K betting on the football (including correctly picking Spain to take out the Euro '08 tournament).

End of year, I had plenty of cash to go around, so I spent a couple of months travelling the UK.. in the New Year, I took a brief visit to Edinburgh. Saw plenty of wotmaniacs at Ben's flat. That was a really big gathering, people from many different countries!

Second visit to Edinburgh was in Dec '12.

2012 was a great year for me because I'd really hit it lucky in an unexpected way...I got a 34K windfall when I hit a division.2 prize in the lotto here in New Zealand. (It still stands as my biggest ever single gambling win by the way).

So with tons of free cash I was able to do lots of travel and again headed to Europe for a couple of months travel in the UK and France. Great visit to Paris!

Noticed that Ben was again having an 'end of the world' gathering in Edinburgh, so I headed up there in December. Not as many at that gathering, but there was good food to be had at the Roseleaf pub.