Edinburgh at Festival time

Statue of Greyfriars Bobby

Street performers juggling flaming torches (one's on a unicycle) plus the back of someone's head

St Giles' cathedral in the middle of the fringe doings.


Had a quiet time catching up with Mikey and family in Woking and then a 6am start Sunday morning to catch flight to Edinburgh. Gatwick Airport is thoroughly awful I must say - huge single line for check-in, then it suddenly split into like 5 lines, so you had the agonizing experience of seeing people who probably turned up half an hour after you manage to get checked in quicker. Plus the check-in desk I was at broke right when I got there grrrr! I was two hours early and I needed every minute of it. Plus I got patted down at the security check - I didn't even set off the gate alarm! Plus I assumed when she said "hold out your arms" that the metal detector was coming, not the busy hands attack - I suggest they inform people in future! Can I start another sentence with 'plus'? No, time for 'however'. However, they didn't charge me for being 2 kgs overweight, excellente.

After hauling my large and heavy wheelie suitcase up Royal Mile through all the Fringe doings, I arrived at the hostel and then went straight back to see what I'd been missing the first time. Beautiful sunny day and lots of fun - basically just street performers everywhere, doing everything from singing opera to escaping from straightjackets. The performers also seemed to have a penchant for stripping down to their undies - or to pink tutus concealed beneath their clothes. I wasn't complaining meh heh heh.

That was lots of fun then in the evening after having a pint of cider in a pub all by my lonesome :( I went to a production of Moliere's The Hypochondriac which was reasonably dire! It was in a teensy tiny little theatre (six rows deep), but they hammed it up as if they were in a Victorian music hall - the exaggerated gestures, the wacky facial expressions, the shouting of every line - dear me! Luckily it was only an hour or so long and I trotted back to the hostel by 10 pm and promptly went to bed (I did get up at 6, remember).

Today I was up bright and early, picked up my clean laundry at the hostel reception (£2.50, damn you Irish laundrette extortionists!) and availed myself of the unisex shower, which I'm not a huge fan of, but there are doors, thankfully. Then I thought I'd wander up to the Scottish Museum. Amazingly, I got there half an hour before it opened, so I had a wee walk around Greyfriar's churchyard, with the obligatory stop at Greyfriar's Bobby's grave. I went on a tour around the museum, which was quite interesting. View from the top was great - it's another lovely day today and then had another wee mosey about. Don't know how much I learned, but a fine way to pass the morning. At home I would likely still be in bed by now!

PS You know you can use the 'comments' section to tell me if I'm being boring or if you're madly jealous or what have you... always nice to know who (if anyone) is reading and what they think