After working from home on Friday morning, we set off to catch the train at Stonehaven at lunchtime, first of all picking up the Kilgours, who were joining us for a weekend's Fringe-ing in Edinburgh.
We had a mini-crisis trying to get in to the apartment we had booked. Entry was by a couple of keys and a password, which I didn't appear to have. All was eventually sorted after a couple of frantic phone calls, so we then headed back up town to check out where our first show was.
Walking up Leith Walk, we came to the big roundabout at Picardy Place and spotted a statue I had never noticed before:
On George St., it was called Johnnie Walker's Guest Night, when the Radio 2 DJ interviewed a well-known celebrity - tonight it was the impressionist John Culshaw - and he was very good at it, although the "interview" lacked a little fluency in places.
We had time for dinner at a Thai restaurant - http://www.phuket-pavilion.co.uk/index.html - and then went for a couple of beers before our late show - Bangalore Rock, which, surprisingly, didn't feature even the slightest flavour of Indian or Eastern influences. Tight band, however.
On Saturday morning, we had brunch at Cafe Marlayne on Leith St., then walked towards the Royal mile to take in some street shows, then picked up an unplanned show, which turned out to be very good - Lead Pencil. When we came out, we spotted another Sherlock connection at the University:
Music next - http://www.johnhunt.org/festival.html. Sort of like Seasick Steve, but it was warm downstairs in the Jazz Cafe.
We made a quick stop at the BrewDog bar in the Cowgate then off to the next show - A Brief History of Beer - this was what we called our "Jesus" moment, recalling a cringeworthy solo show of the same name a few years ago. Some interesting facts, but the fast-paced Star Trek presentation was all wrong - but it was a free show after all.
We found a nice little bistro with an outdoor walled garden and had dinner there before our last show of the day:
Hardeep Singh Kohli was very funny early on when talking about growing up as a Sikh in Glasgow, but when he moved on to the subject matter of his show, which was titled Hardeep is Your Love - even now, I can't get the Bee Gees' damned tune out of my head - he rambled a bit and seemed to lose the thread a little.
On Sunday we had nothing planned. We took breakfast outdoors at a little cafe just off the Royal Mile then just wandered up the temporarily pedestrianised High St. and took in some of the free street shows:
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| Colin, Jo & Johanne watch the slack wire performer from a vantage point. |
We then stumbled across Gladstone's Land (http://www.nts.org.uk/Property/Gladstones-Land/), which gave us an opportunity to use our National Trust membership cards for the first time for a while.
Coffee and scones next at The Hub (http://www.thehub-edinburgh.com/), after which we wandered up to the Castle, where Colin took this photo:
I should explain here that Jo is trying to tell Colin to raise the lens higher to take in the Castle ramparts. I decided I had to take over:
From up here, we could see out across the Firth of Forth to Fife:
The stands for the Tattoo on the Castle Esplanade are pretty permanent-looking fixtures nowadays, unlike my memories of Mum taking me there many years ago, sitting in rickety seats, blasted by the cold wind:
From the highest point of the town, we walked down various flights of stairs to the Grassmarket. It started to rain so we thought we'd best take shelter and watch a show - https://www.facebook.com/theyeariwasgifted. We knew it was a one woman show in a small venue, but perhaps didn't quite realise quite how gay the theme was - and how small the audience would be. We almost doubled the attendance! It was pretty good, however.
We caught the train home and were back in the house by 7:30 pm. Tea, toasted cheese, plus some old episodes of Corrie - nice to be home.
On another note, Jo goes back to the Doctor's this week. She was there last Wednesday to see about the recurring pain she gets in her ribs/chest area. The GP actually gave her 2 hours of her time, testing everything she could. She reckoned there's nothing wrong with Jo's bones and she wanted to also try to eliminate any heart issues, other than Jo's known angina, which is being treated. Jo's now been put on Omiprazole, which is an anti-ulcer drug (I used to use it too) to counteract any indigestion issues confusing the picture. Watch this space.
Continuing on matters of health, I'm back to the cardiologist for my annual check-up this Thursday.
St. Andrews for me tomorrow and we have Mary and Brian coming up for the weekend on Friday, but that's about all for this week, I think.
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