Not London

There can be nothing more ageing than choosing to have coffee in a Fringe venue where the inhabitants are on the other side of 25 from His Lordship and me and congregate standing up near our table while conversing in voices which are on a industrially banned decibel level. That, and the insomniac in the Meadows who beat a drum for half and hour at 3:30 am this morning has tipped His Lordship over the edge into being a grumpy old man.

That forces me to be slightly cheerier in the face of the tourist onslaught, even though I had to wade through the crowds to meet my best friend from school days, who was up in Edinburgh for a short visit.
Our meeting place was the National Library, usually a place of quiet restraint and rectitude but which today saw a man of dubious appearance come in hitting a ball with a tennis racquet. What did the good Burghers of Edinburgh do? Why we raised our eyebrows and turned the other way- no point in making a fuss.

Despite only meeting up rarely, it was lovely to reminisce with the ease of those who have a friendship going back almost seven decades.

My blip is where we should have been this morning instead of Summerhall.
No corners of our area remain sacrosanct from the Fringe and this is a cobbled lane behind George Square where one of the erstwhile stables has been transformed into a café serving refreshments while an accordionist and a fiddler provided music.