I commented when drunk on Arthur Smith's Pissed Up Chat Show that I couldn't believe that J K Rowling had written Harry Potter in Edinburgh, but not set it here. Perhaps this Gothic city provided some inspiration but the city is full of magic. Not least of which the fact that the three central routes from Princes Street to the Royal Mile all seem to start at roughly the same place and yet one is an almost flat bridge, one a steep incline to the mound and one a winding road up to the Tempting Tattie. Even now my brain can't quite work out how the geography of this city works. But also oddly magical is the time frame of the Fringe, which feels like it is infinite whilst you are here, but once it's over seems to have lasted just seconds, like it's some magical Scottish village that appears once every hundred years for a day, but time is suspended when you're inside it.
Driving out of town this morning, it felt like we had driven in just yesterday. Explain that Richard Dawkins. You can't. Shut up. You can't do it. I am not listening. It's impossible.
Earlier I had travelled down to the bank to pay in the last load of SCOPE money and my cheques from the Stand (it's marvellous at this venue, you get paid on a weekly basis - I made money - Woo hoo), I passed the part of the Royal Mile where yesterday there were leafletters and students singing and stages and today there is nothing. The Fringe disappears over night. The posters were still up on the lamp posts, but they looked archaic already.
Perhaps fittingly the NatWest coin machine broke down half way through my second load of coins today. It's been unreliable at best this year and I had a good few days where I had to go to the old fashioned system of counting and bagging. But today I got a pay out of maybe £100 worth of coins which will have to come back with me to London. The total lies tantalisingly short of the £11K marker, but once everything gets paid in, it will top it. Hooray!
Then I got a cab over to my car, still parked by the original flat that we were meant to be staying in, but which luckily for us did not have broadband (because it meant we got moved to our much nicer, more central and palatial flat). I wonder how different our Fringe would have been if we'd stayed at the original place. Who knows? Only baby Jesus and he's not saying. The fucker.
I was relieved that the car started first time, worrying the battery might have gone flat after a month's neglect. Before long all our stuff was packed in the back and we were going and leaving the bubble for the real world.
But we're in no rush to get home, even though we haven't been there for over a month and we're breaking the journey up, firstly spending a few days in the Lake District. I was very tired on the drive there and it seemed to take an age, but finally we arrived in a tranquil hotel on the edge of Ullswater. There may be some hiking in days to come, but today was all about catching up on rest and I snoozed through the afternoon, before eating a four course dinner as the sun set over the lake. It still feels odd not doing the shows and a part of my brain panicked at about 2.20pm because I should have been doing a podcast. So the Edinburgh bubble not entirely burst.
And so far no illness. Hooray!
