Requiescat in Pace

So it's almost all over, bar the shouting
The Edinburgh Fringe of 2011 dies today; no more Military Tattoo with it's nerve jangling gun fire at 10:30 pm; no more thump, thump of unheard music from the Lady Boys' tent across the way; no more event fliers carpeting the High Street and the Pleasance; no more incongruous plastic edifices in the pretty George Square gardens; no more youthful fringe participants enlivening a walk down to the city centre; and no more nose-to-tail buses gridlocking the city centre.

The Fringe Cow Pasture outside the McEwen Hall will revert to its normal academic douce space where the autumn graduands will soon stand in their gowns holding their degree scrolls.

It's all been rather exciting having the Fringe on the doorstep, but like a guest who outstays their welcome, things have got a bit tired and jaded in the last few days.
Even the hoardings with their graffitied posters, are starting to wilt and look as though they would be better removed.

The huge white tents are being dismantled in Potterrow and the marquee is coming down in the Meadows. The circus has already left town.
Removal vans stand in line waiting like carrion crows.

All we have to look forward to is the Fireworks concert next Sunday when we will stand just where I took this blip and watch the castle transformed into the magical centre of a breathtaking display of pyrotechnics, in time to music played by the Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Princes Street Gardens.

As if to draw a line under the Fringe, the weather today is distinctly autumnal with a stiff cold wind, and trees whose leaves are beginning to change colour and fall.

I can't see any t-shirts and bare midriffs, just anoraks and woolly scarves, and yes, the omnipresent umbrella.