I always feel that Edinburgh shows us her knickers during the festivals.  Yes, there is an influx of the tosserati.  Yes, you have to add 45 minutes on to the planning  time for every journey involving the city centre, even if you are walking.  Yes, everywhere is full.  But the streets are packed with colour and interest, I feel much safer out late at night,  and famous people spotting is a joy (apparently missed Andrew Marr last night but saw Sophie Gråbøl and Blythe Duff).  People stand naked on stage and no-one bats an eyelid.

We have seen the previews of the James plays, premiering at the Festival proper this year, and they were very good, James II particularly disturbing.   We certainly know a lot more about the history of that period now and it’s a wonder any of them managed to be king for more than five minutes with that amount of chicanery, plotting and double dealing omnipresent.   You will oft have heard me opine that no-one got to be king by being nice, and those three plays proved just that.

We also made it to the Commonwealth Games to see the mountain biking, very exciting once we worked out where best to stand.  By the hairpin bend with the thirty foot drop was good.

Lastly, after a month of searching the Falkirk Herald website I have finally found the below picture of my father attending the 100th anniversary party for California Primary School.   Dad is the one cutting the cake.  I did find the write up in the paper three weeks later, I would have thought that the attendance of an ex-headmaster, who was nearly as old as the school itself, would have been worthy  of note, but apparently not to that journalist.  So I am not putting up a link to it.