Edinburgh in August (by Cecilia Peartree)

 Edinburgh in August

These days I don't tend to venture into the centre of Edinburgh very often, and I must admit I've been even less tempted than usual in recent weeks because Princes Street, which has been a main thoroughfare for centuries as well as a shopping street, has been closed to traffic, even buses and trams. This was because of a major fire there which left a derelict building in danger of collapsing into the street below.

I don't know what the crowds of Festival tourists thought of this, though I know some local people were greatly inconvenienced by the changes to transport routes. My son, who lives at one side of town and works at the other, has probably been spending about an hour more than usual on buses, which hasn't been much fun, especially on the hottest days (yes, the temperature went as high as 25 degrees on occasion, and we just aren't used to it!).

Apologies for the unseasonal picture! It isn't actually snowing here as I write.

However, I was rather taken aback by a widely quoted article in one of the Scottish papers claiming local people were 'traumatised' by all the Festival, Fringe and Book Festival activity so they hadn't been buying enough tickets. I've always been quite excited by the prospect of being able to choose from hundreds of different forms of entertainment, some of which might even be almost educational. I don't do what I used to do and go through the printed brochures marking the pages now - it's all online anyway - and I do feel slightly guilty about only going to a couple of shows I'd seen advertised on Facebook, as well as watching the online feed from one Book Festival session. Maybe because I haven't been going out much I really enjoyed both the theatre shows and also felt a sense of triumph at having managed to get to them!

The first was a comedy version of Macbeth, which of course seems like a contradiction in terms. I think it's called The Farndale Avenue Women's Institute Macbeth or words to that effect, and it's similar to The Play That Goes Wrong series. The really nice thing about this was that it was done by Edinburgh People's Theatre, a local company and one that I used to do props for a while ago. To my surprise several people recognised me and I enjoyed that too. The highlights for me were  the witches and the Tomorrow and tomorrow speech, which done seriously is probably my favourite Shakespeare speech, but the way it's done in this show is so clever that I could ignore the sacrilege.

The second was a partly improvised play called Murder She Didn't Write, driven by prompts from the audience. It worked very well, though I did feel a bit anxious on behalf of the leading man, who had to play Jon Bon Jovi at very short notice.

We were much too early for this one, thanks to a taxi driver who kept diving down back streets. Fortunately I had just purchased a new walking aid with its own seat to wait on, so I was able to spend quite a while outside the venue (George Square Theatre - I hadn't been inside it since my final year at university about 100 years ago -  wondering why there were so many steps all over the place. The staff at the venue were great at looking after people with various disabilities, and my companions benefitted from this too as we all got inside ahead of everyone else. I hadn't expected this as I am more used to struggling up stairs etc on my own.