It’s hot in the city!

To quote Billy Idol, it’s hot in the city tonight, one more day of gloriousness, then, here comes the rain again, along with cooler temperatures. Will it improve again by the start of the Fringe? Hope so, I fully intend to start my Fringe atop Arthur’s Seat watching Barry Ferns – as long as it’s not wet. It’s been so nice for so long now, and with restrictions on holidays to hotter climes chopping and changing so much, Portobello beach hasn’t been this busy in years; the eateries along the Prom are doing excellent business.

I’ve been noticing on my walks in the Park that it looks like being a bumper year for cherries, yay. This evening as I walked off my tea I realised the somewhat screechy birds way up high were swifts; I knew that they were around at that time of the evening but I’ve never heard them like that before. There were quite a number of them having fun swooping around, chasing each other. A good excuse for me to pause awhile and just enjoy the spectacle overhead.

My tea? A lamb hotpot pie courtesy of Brewsters along with lots of steamed broccoli and carrots. Brewsters pies are very nice, they started doing chicken pies and now there’s occasionally lamb hotpot, steak and ale or steak and kidney, all very tasty with perfect pastry and no scrimping on the meat content. Tonight I washed it down with a bottle of ginger beer, also bought at the Farmer’s Market. Slim Hat are a new venture by a young couple living in the Old Town, this truly is a local product! It is as the label says, an authentic ginger beer, with a good kick to it, I wish them well.

Alas, anyone thinking of buying some at the Farmer’s Market to take into a show at MultiStory will be disappointed as there’ll be strict rules in place that no food or drink may be taken on to the site. This did make me wonder when I read it, as many carry water bottles round with them during the Fringe usually – will these too be banned? Seems harsh. Not that it will probably bother me as I most likely won’t be in there, being a solo Fringer (see my last post), nor am I likely to be seeing any shows at the Gilded Balloon this year as the same silly two or four bubble policy is in place. Mind, I’m not that bother at the moment as a cursory glance over their shows so far didn’t turn up anything I fancied.

I do hope the other venues don’t have similar policies, I would like to see some real live shows! Oo, I do have one show booked! It’s not actually through the Fringe website, but, as it’s John-Luke Roberts at the Monkey Barrel Comedy Club in August I’m counting it as Fringe. I have done some perusing of the Fringe programme online but it really isn’t as enjoyable as going through a physical paper one. I do hope they go back to a physical programme next year, it’s much more agreeable and I get to keep a copy as souvenir and reference book.

Well, it’s very late now, so I should be toddling off to my bed. I shall leave you with another selection of recent photos, enjoy!

Sunset captured on a gallivant along the East Lothian coast.
Okay, so I may have tinkered with this a bit! I had The Twilight Zone by Rush going through my head at the time.

Old, posh, rather batty – no, not me!

Another cracking day here in Edinburgh, I’ve been lazying in the Park just sunning myself and reading. It’s a rather good book, Lady in Waiting, the autobiography of one Anne Glenconner. You may well not be familiar with the name, I wasn’t, and then my friend who was lending the book to me said, “You remember her, she was on the Graham Norton Show. Old, posh, rather batty, very funny. Princess Margaret’s chum, husband bought Mustique?!” Ah yes, her. Definitely wanted to know more – well I’m finding out an awful lot!! What a life she’s led, what a character, surrounded by characters. Okay so maybe some of it maybe embellished, who cares, it’s a great read. If you remember her from the show and like me went Oo and then forgot about her, get the paperback!

Today was so gorgeous here that the shallow pools by the parliament building had a number of small kids splashing about in them and obviously not an impromptu splash for many as they had swimwear on. Not sure if the architect of the Scottish Parliament had paddling pools in mind when he designed the foreground landscape!?

In other news, the Edinburgh Fringe programme is starting to fill out nicely, with more shows being added to the website today (that’s http://www.edfringe.com). There’s another twenty real physical venues added, one Online added, three more outdoor meeting places and, yay, the West End Fair will be back in physical form! Always a good place to look for unusual Christmas presents, and maybe a treat for oneself. Be warned though, some only take stalls for a week rather than the full three weeks, if I want to ponder on a purchase I’ll always check how long they’ll be around.

Sone rather disappointing news about MultiStory, the new festival hub being set up at the NCP carpark on Castle Terrace (a multi-storey carpark going down on to King Stables Road, geddit?). Apparently no single tickets are being sold! I hadn’t picked up on this until I saw a comment on Facebook raising the issue. The reply from the Gilded Balloon said, “Unfortunately, due to government restrictions tickets are only available in groups of 2 or 4. If availability allows, we’ll release some single tickets closer to the show dates. If any single tickets are released, we’ll announce it on social media.” Erm, I think they mean if a show isn’t selling, shows no signs of selling many tickets, they’ll make a quick, late on,splash announcement to entice more in, anyone’ll do.

Of course, it also means three friends can’t go together, either one drops out or they pay for four tickets, or they don’t bother and instead buy one ticket for another show that’s online and with the leftover money get a few drinks in. I’m not sure why the current government restrictions won’t allow single tickets to be sold though, especially since they may be sold later?! Maybe just easier for their booking system, perhaps? To be honest, as yet I’m not too bothered, the few shows they’ve so far announced don’t appeal to me, but I feel for the lady who raised the point on Facebook. Solo travellers unite – at least with one or three other people!

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures from a clamber in the Park few days ago and one from the other evening when I went out to Cramond. Toodle pip!

Cramond causeway – the Toblerone-inspired design ensured that only the fittest should make it across to the island, the passage of time and tides had made the task even more of a challenge.