I don’t know what we did to deserve it, but we rolled into Edinburgh around 1pm on Friday just as the sun was breaking through the clouds. And from then on, the weather was just beautiful. For those of you who were praying for some sunshine for us, well done! You did good! It was glorious.

The weekend was wonderful. We saw a few shows, some great, some so-so. Of the fringy events my personal favorite was Jimeoin. Hilarious as usual. The crowd was mostly Paddys and Aussies, but still, he was great!

But really, the weekend was dominated by two things. One good. The other bad. First the good: Definitely the highlight of the trip was the Tattoo on Saturday night. Absolutely brilliant! Now I have to take back my off-the-cuff comment about men in skirts, blowing pipes (see Friday) because in all honesty, it was truly amazing. I’ve never actually watched the Tattoo on TV. I’ve known that it is on telly, in every country, every year in fact, but I’ve never actually sat down to watch it… why would I? Military bands, big crowds, on telly? no, not really my kind of show. But being there was great! I’d go again in a heartbeat. The atmosphere was electric, the backdrop of Edinburgh castle is beautiful, and the precision, and the piping is just fabulous. Not to mention, the odd drunk trying to get up to the top of the stands, the silver hair brigade giggling amongst themselves, and the compere wishing happy silver wedding anniversary to Edith and Frank who are sitting in the North Stand C – truly memorable!

The bad was the service. In restaurants, pubs, coffee shops, hotels – the service was shite. Really really memorably terrible. Forgetful staff, incredibly long wait times, moody staff, dirty cutlery, no cutlery, you name it, it was messed up. Just one example was lunch on Friday… how hard is 4 x bangers & mash and 4 x pints of Tenants Velvet?? Well, we got 4 pints and 1 bangers and mash. 1.5 hours later the other 3 plates arrived. They forgot! No ‘sorry’, no free pints while we were waiting…. just our lunches, 1.5 hours late. This continued throughout the weekend, we had missing meals, wrong meals delivered, moody staff banging about the table, disgusting meals, rip offs on the change….. it just went on and on. In the end, our last lunch in Edinburgh – after they delivered the coffee, but not the sandwiches, we’d had enough. We asked for our money back, and we left – bound for service friendly Glasgow.

Who knows what that was all about, maybe just too many tourists – and the Edinburgh locals had just about had enough, I don’t know, but I would sincerely hope that our experience was not normal, because I might not want to give them too many more chances to get it right.

In the end, it was a lot of fun, and we’re already planning next years fringe – where we want to stay, which weekend – you know how it is…