It’s that time of year in Edinburgh again. The main Edinburgh International Festival, and most of the other specialist festivals, including The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (known simply as “The Fringe”), have either started or are due to begin soon.

Usually we never go to anything at any of the festivals, but this year we decided to be different, simply because there was too much good stuff going on to miss out. It’s a difficult thing to explain, but to most people I know in Edinburgh, “the Festival” is something that only folk who aren’t local go to, which is a real shame.

The Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival kicked off on Friday 27th July. Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames played an superb jazz-tinged set at The Queens Hall. The man has an incredibly encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of jazz and blues from the sixties, and gives the lengthiest intros to the songs the band are about to play, right down to what year he met so-and-so, when they used to play in such-and-such band and he lived in such-and-such a street. The level of detail was unbelievable. So too was his Hammond B3 (and piano) playing. His voice has lost nothing over the years, and was instantly recognisable. The amazing Alan Skidmore also played tenor sax wonderfully. All in all, it was a great night’s entertainment.

Yesterday had the Mardi Gras held in the Grassmarket (as a colleague at work said, “but it’s not Tuesday!”). We had a real rarity here - the sun came out for the best part of the afternoon. I know you think I’ve moved on to writing fiction, but I’m really not making this up - it was windy, but glorious. After that, we took in the astonishing Chris Lyons Trio at The Jazz Bar. before heading off to have a nice Italian meal at La Rusticana in Cockburn Street.

We’ve a couple more Festival-related events planned. I’ll let you know later how they went.

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