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...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, including 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.