What time is it?

I feel like I'm mirroring Jack aka SuperGran today and yesterday in today's blip. More of which later.

Edinburgh is gearing up to full Festival frenzy. The Pleasance is being turned from being the centre for Edinburgh University Student Societies to a buzzing Fringe venue, the banners are hanging down the front of the Assembly Hall (is it only 2 months since the 'Fathers and Brethern' were there?), the temporary advertising sites have sprouted at the foot of Marchmont Road (and elsewhere too, I'm sure) and the tourists are everywhere - you can hardly hear a local voice as you troll round the town.

This year I'm participating in Festival Frenzy. I've booked tickets in the EIF, the 'official' Festival and the Fringe and collected them today from the Hub and the Fringe Box Office - where they now have very snazzy self service 'queue busting' machines. I've downloaded the Fringe app on my phone so can look forward to daily updates on half price tickets from 10th August.

I reflected on my plans as I walked down the Royal Mile. Despite being born, and living for most of the first 22 years of my life, in Edinburgh I haven't been a Festival regular. For one thing, when I lived here before the Festival was later - it started at the end of August and ran through to mid September, so we were back at school, or I was working in my vacation job. In those days the Fringe ran in tandem with the EIF, not as now starting and finishing earlier and running for longer. I did go to a few things while I was at school and uni (got free tickets to see Ian McKellen in Prospect Theatre Company's amazing 'Richard II' at the [excruciatingly hot and uncomfortable] Assembly Hall because I did so well in my Higher English. I fell in love then and there with Ian McKellen, before I knew ...) but overall the Festival(s) had little impact on me.

It was a very different time then, in other ways. Pubs (and it was pubs, no wine bars and bistros) shut at 10 p.m., although I imagine there were private clubs where you could get a drink after that. There were few cafes, no coffee houses and definitely no pavement eating, eat outside in an Edinburgh September, don't be daft! McVities on Princes Street was the height of sophistication for a 'late' night cuppa and bun. Ryan's was still Rankins, the fruit and veg emporium. The upmarket bars and restaurants and wine bars on George Street were still banks and insurance offices. 'Top Shop' was still Forsyth's and it was the Waverley Market, not the Princes Street Mall. In 1972 the giant welly boot advertising the then little known Billy Connolly's 'Great Northern Welly Boot Show' was displayed over its entrance. Around town the buses (rear entrance and with conductors) had little placards at the front advertising shows. I vividly remember being particularly taken with the sound of 'Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead' 6 years earlier, although I was far too young to go to the play. The Fireworks concert hadn't been invented (later I went to one of the early ones with my mum and some sons when it was free and the crush in the Gardens was a safety hazard) and the comedy explosion, along with the Perrier (now the Foster, strange how it's gone from fizzy water to fizzy beer), had yet to happen on the Fringe. There were no open top bus tours and no trams tram lines.

When we lived 140 miles 'up north' we were always going to 'do the Festival' but it was difficult. We were poor (!), we had three kids, the grandparents weren't keen on being a babysitting service, we preferred to holiday in France or Nairn or Burghead, even Leven (honestly, we preferred France to Leven but like I said, 3 kids under 6, a 'nanny' and a mortgage, we were poor). We did come down a few times for a week-end, mainly going to the free shows and taking in the 'ambience' - street theatre in the Royal Mile and at the Mound, outdoor eating in the Grassmarket watching the crowds go by. We had friends who 'did' the Festival most years - a hectic week-end in Edinburgh, shows from 7 a.m. to 3 a.m. and dinner at the Loon Fung - not my idea of fun.

Latterly as the kids got older it got easier - taking #1 son to the Pleasance as he approached 17, being thrown out of the beer garden at the 'Pear Tree' because #2's, then, girlfriend wasn't 21 (or was it 18?), sitting on the Meadows in the sun - but mostly we heard about it at a distance.

Two years ago when I came back to Edinburgh, after 34 years away, I wasn't in a fit state to do the Festival - what I really wanted to do was avoid all these happy people in the Royal Mile - head down and back to the safety of the flat as quickly as possible. Then last year I was back at La G, in France.

But this year, I'm in a different place, physically and emotionally. I'll be in Edinburgh for the whole time. I can decide what I want to go and see and I can do it - whenever it is ( well maybe not TOO late). So I'm getting in to the Festival mood too. I think it's going to be such good fun and I'm sure will give loads of opportunity for Festival themed blips. Watch this space!

More fun in prospect next week as my friend, Dame B, phoned. She's home on leave (after the excitement of entertaining the Royals) and will be in Edinburgh. Looking forward to catching up. Another phone call meant I caught up with A. She's recently retired (like me now an ex-community worker) and her twin daughter, H, has just got engaged. Good when you hear happy news.

Chamberlainjohn asked for a review on last night's meal at Martin Wishart's new bistro 'The Honours'. Well what can I say, ok is probably as good as I can go. Adequate, not fantastic (my bavette was lukewarm), perhaps better to 'have your tea' before you go and if he wants a star for this new eatery he'll have to improve the service. It's usually better if the staff finish setting the table before the clients arrive. I'm told he was in the kitchen last night - pity he didn't come and say 'hello'.

And what time was it? If you live in, or know Edinburgh, you'll know it was just before 1 p.m. The ball is hoisted up the Nelson Monument's telescope tower and then it falls at 1 p.m. as a time signal for the ships in the Forth - like a silent 'one o'clock gun'. This was taken from the graveyard at the Canongate Church. I went to visit the church (having never been inside it) but it was closed, although open to-night for a concert and then it will be closed again as of course NEXT Friday is THAT wedding. How many blips will we see of that?

Back home, the paperwork is sorted, the bumf is in the bin, the important stuff is alphabetised and filed in Lever Arch files and the other stuff is in folders ready to be sent (at enormous expense, no doubt) to M - whose responsibility it is now - hurray! As #2 son would say - result.