Help Required

This Fringe performer was apparently the worse for wear, requiring a helping hand to make it to the station.

The old douce Edinburghers were out and about reclaiming the streets for themselves early this morning; the elderly ladies with their coiffed white hair- does ( the blue rinses have gone out of fashion) and genteel suits, carrying handbags and shopping baskets; the men with their collar and ties, tweed jackets, and wielding their canes or umbrellas to great effect against traffic which threatened to mow them down as they crossed the highways at undesignated points.

It's a mystery as to where these redoubtable people have been for the last month. Some may have taken off to highland spas for the duration or perhaps they have been around all the while but hidden amongst the maelstrom of tourists.

Later
I wrote the last paragraphs after my first foray into town just after 9:30 this morning, but realised when I joined a cycling friend for an al fresco lunch in Princes Street Gardens, that the tourists were only having a long lie in order to stravaig about later on, and block all the pavements leading to the High Street and beyond.

Now on the streets, there was a tide of anoraks, back packs, cameras, push chairs and reluctant children, ebbing and flowing past billboards and general clutter and holding back those of us with a goal in mind. Sharp elbows would have been an asset as I got caught behind the surge of people unused to climbing hilly roads like the Mound.

An afternoon of sanity followed, when my premier friend o.m.t's and I sorted out the world, including the tram fiasco but we didn't quite get round to Libya. Maybe next week.