Tay

When I was planning this trip I built in a day in Dundee to see the new V&A. I booked my train tickets and was looking forward to repeating the journey I did years ago, admiring the bridges over the Firth of Forth, watching the sunlight sparking on the sea from the right side of the train and rattling over the Tay into Dundee. At random, I chose today then filled up all my other days with festival tickets. 

All week I've watched the Edinburgh forecast change and mostly improve but nothing has changed about the forecast for Friday in Dundee: torrential rain from first to last. 

And so it was. I braved the wind tunnel through the V&A building (the architect did not know Dundee) to have a look at the river waves beyond and was disappointed to see that the granite cliff-face exterior is cladding not structural. I'm sure it's nonetheless photogenic but it's impossible to photograph with horizontal rain battering the camera lens. The views from inside were limited because all the terraces were closed due to 'inclement' weather (what a strange word that is, used only in 19th century novels and 21st century notices). Once I'd taken all the pictures I could inside and seen all I wanted to see, I gave up and caught the train south into the light. Back in Edinburgh it was 5C warmer and the sun was shining so I learnt a few more streets, paid homage to the Parliament building and bought last-minute tickets to:

Raven - on combining a career as an acrobat with motherhood, 'raven' being a German term for women who neglect their children in pursuit of a career. (They didn't tell us the word for fathers who neglect their children to pursue a career.)

Shine - an 'experimental' drama, with the soundtrack on headphones, about a missing child. There were lots of hints to the audience that the mother might have dunnit until the end when it was revealed she hadn't. About as engaging as Dundee in the rain.

Black and white in colour 190