my stuff
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on the up
So, Edinburgh is hectic and busy and full of tourists – yes, it’s festival time. I have actually avoided going anywhere near any of it for the last 3 weeks. It’s weird living in Edinburgh when the festival is on. For those of you not in the know, the Edinburgh festival runs for the last 3 weeks in August throughout the whole city. There’s loads of different festivals that all run at the same time, making it the biggest cultural festival in the world. The book festival, the film festival, the fringe festival, t on the fringe (music festival), the Edinburgh international festival – blah, millions of them. Basically, you can’t walk through Edinburgh without tripping over a festival.
For everybody that comes to visit during this time, it’s really exciting. There’s so much to see and do. People take time off work, book accommodation, pick up their daily guides to what’s on and make a week of it, from morning till night (and with large amounts of pubs and clubs open till 5am its more like morning till morning). You see real professional festival goers, it’s quite daunting when you pop into town to pick something up from M&S or wherever and you get mowed down by big groups of Americans (blending into the Scottish way of life by wearing head to toe tartan) clutching their Guardian festival guides and marching off to some random venue to see a play about god only knows what.
For people living in Edinburgh at this time though, it’s CHAOS. All of a sudden our city turns into this great cultural phenomenon. Famous people are all over the place, it’s mental busy, the whole place turns into some kind of groovy European city. We all have to work though (every year we all say ‘right, next year for the festival, I’m taking a week off, I’m saving up and I’m actually going to DO the festival’) and we can’t afford to do the festival morning till night time (hell, the pints are about £5 in most of the festival venues! Get a grip!) and a 20 minute bus journey to your friends house takes 50 minutes and the same cheese and tomato sandwich that you get EVERY day for lunch that costs you £2.20 now costs you £3.20 and all in all it’s a bit shit.
Still, it’s interesting. And it can be fun. I do love it. I just need to get out into it more. When Jen gets here this weekend we’re going to do loads of festival things, there’s a couple of really exciting looking exhibitions I want to go and see (The GIANT people, Kev!) and generally we just want to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the city for a while.
Last night we went to see Beck and Radiohead play. God what a line up! We were all very excited. Unfortunately, the dicks at the venue told us the wrong running time so we missed the first 20 minutes of Beck, but it was still excellent. And Radiohead were amazing. I love that band live, they put me into a bit of a trance.
We finished off the night with fish and chips and a nice walk home. It’s the first night out me & Bandito have been on for a loooooong time. We’re poking our head out of this horrible financial situation we’ve been in.
We’ve got the first week in September booked off and we’re trying to go on holiday, but even if we don’t get away at least we’ll have some time off together. We can do some nice things here in Edinburgh before the festival finishes all together.
I’m looking forward to it.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, has to be the most positive entry I’ve written in a long time. I’m sorry I’ve been such a rubbish buddy lately (Christ, think how my real life friends have been feeling – I’ve been on such shit form recently), I’ve not replied to any of your notes, I’ve not replied to any of your emails, I’ve been completely consumed by my own misery and skint-ness.
Still. I feel like I’m on the up again. Fingers crossed.
Love you x
10:57 am - 23 August 2006
