Single Ladies

Tuesday, my last full day in Edinburgh, and, obviously you will have realised that I like packing the day with activities, this was no exception. Having discovered a pool so close to home, I was moderately pleased to have another session down to use it. I headed in, paid up, and the lady said "It's just a half pool till 11, is that OK?" I said, "Yes, fine", but as I was leaving, she said "the shallow end's cordoned off". "What?" I asked. She repeated this, slowly for the English person. I couldn't really quite grasp it. They were really expecting me to swim widths? Apparently so - without even halving my entrance fee, which I think would have been fair. Fortunately it was actually five to 11 at the time, so I was able to dawdle for long enough getting ready that I had the whole pool. Something very weird was going on though. There weren't any lanes today, as there had been on Sunday, so I scanned the pool and decided that I'd cause least problems if I stuck to the middle, and let the meanderers have the edges. I guess there were about 40 people in the water, it was quite busy. As I slipped into the shallow end, I realised that I'd just dropped the average age to about 62. To be honest, I felt as if I'd inadvertently joined a set of Dr Who. Especially since they sometimes seemed to all move in the same direction, without really communicating. I did apologise to a granny for disrupting their leisurely swim, and she said, "nonsense, we just wish we could still swim like you", which was both kind and a bit creepy.

Today's task was to swim for 45 minutes, taking as few breaks as possible, and sticking with the crawl as much as possible. That' easy for Sal to say. The pensioners were not only drifting up and down the pool, they were also drifting across it - and diagonally. Every which way. I stuck with my  sets-of-five principle which had seemed to work, but in truth, it really didn't today. I came unstuck so many times, breaststroke is a far easier stroke to negotiate other swimmers in. Also, bear with me on this, I suspect it might be my rising insanity. I felt sick when I did crawl. The thing is, with crawl, I mainly looked at the swimming pool floor, with brief glances up to see which side the pensioners were attacking from. With breaststroke, on the other hand, I mainly look up, or at least forward at the pool. What I noticed about the floor of the swimming pool was it was filthy. Then I noticed that as I was in the middle, swimming directly towards a water filter, that the filter was 3/4 blocked. This is awful, and has no connection, but about that time, I started thinking about old ladies and incontinence. Then I started feeling sick. I don't know why breaststroke made me feel any better. Perhaps I was coming down with something, and the crawl was actually moving too fast for me, I don't know. But the swim, while I completed 62 lengths, was not as satisfying by any stretch as the Sunday swim. I was relieved to get out and leave, and grateful that, thought I wouldn't particularly boast about the cleanliness of Peterborough's regional pool, and I know where all the cracked and missing tiles are, and where the funny brown marks are, it has never made me feel like that.

On Tuesday, I had a treat, which was that I was having lunch with Mwara, a friend from the olden Edinburgh days, and her three girls. We met at Bruntsfield Links, and headed into Bruntsfield for lunch at Montpeliers, which was lovely, and generally pretty good value, although wine by the glass is extortionate. On the way back, we called into Nippers, where I was able to pick up a gift for the younger Loat, and also observed that the fine and upstanding "Peckhams" sells Thistlycross Cider, which is Scotland's only cider. It comes in some amazing flavours though, including with strawberries, in malt casks, and my favourite, with ginger. In fact, I happened to be having lunch with the wife of Scotland's only cider-maker. There should be a film about that: "The Last Cider Maker of Scotland". Or something. I think Peter's up for the lead.

After lunch, I just had time to stop off at the Udderbelly/Cowpasture, and drop off apricot jam (my second delivery after Mwara) with Emma, along with the cute ladybird leggings I'd got for Dory, and have a quick cup of tea with her and Mike, before heading off for The Seagull Effect. This was another up and coming theatre company, who did some impressive feats with projection during their play, which was largely about the 1987 hurricane, and climate change, and the impacts on people's lives. It was a well-put-together piece.

I had some time before my next show, and we'd realised the problem with finding Simon's friend the day before - his show, So Much Potential, was in the venue where we'd been watching comedy the day before... but in a different room. So we went to check it out. Annoyingly, they weren't doing it on Tuesdays, but kind of weirdly, they'd chosen to spend their "day off" sitting in the room, having a banter with anyone who came in, having an open mic, and drawing people. They were relaxed and friendly, and drew Summer, and didn't object to people walking in and out, which was lucky, because that's exactly what I had to do to get to my next show. We wished them well for the rest of their run, and bid them farewell.

Well, my next Show was "All the Single Ladies" with Andi Osho, which I was very excited about. I think she's a very funny lady. While I was waiting in the queue, a strange bloke came up, and asked me if I'd put my arms out, scarecrow like. You might think I was wrong to do this, but there was something I couldn't quite... "Van? Is it you?" So this was a man I'd met in my Freshers Week at University, who was at the time setting up a society called the Hugga-Bugga-Jaffa-Appreciation Society, and it largely involved hugging people (and eating jaffa cakes). Clearly the bloke is mad as a hatter, and it goes without saying that I love him. I asked someone to take a photo of us, and he immediately swept me into his arms, like this:

He was in town with his wife and three kids, but it was amazing, the people you run into. What a find!

Anyway, I'd rather accidentally got a ticket for Andi Osho, because Tom's mum Diane had bought one, but because it was a 2 for 1 day, she'd thought she'd get the spare one incase anyone wanted it, so my luck was in there. I found her in the queue, which was good, because it's fun to have someone to see comedy with. We sat kind of near the front (obviously avoiding the front row), and as we sat down, noticed that she was right there! Perched at the edge of the stage! She spoke with one or two of the brave folk in the front row. I looked at her in awed admiration, unable to think of a single thing to say. She started off the show saying she liked sitting out front for two reasons - one was that it's really boring back stage, and second because it's really funny seeing people's reactions to her sitting there, doing a sort of bunny at car headlights impression. So I guess I behaved pretty typically.

She asked who was in couples, and who wasn't, and I guess I may have been a little exuberant in my whoop when she asked for single ladies, because she was able to identify my position in the audience. She asked how long I'd been single, so I told her, since Christmas, and then she asked me if he was a dick, and I agreed, and she said "yeah, they all are". She asked me if I was ready to date again yet, and I stood up and said "Hell, yeah", which made everyone laugh, and Andi said I could go on a double date with her! That is easily the most exciting offer I have ever had! The gist of her show is that she finds single men in the audience, and then, really, picks one and goes on a date with him. There is some other audience participation in which person she picks. Tragically, there was no one in the audience who would admit to being single that night, so I lost my chance. She did address a lot of the rest of the show to me, though, as she ran through internet dating disasters - I shared her pain! It was an awesome show. I wish I could have gone on a double date with her. I did hold onto my last shreds of dignity and not shout out "Me and you, Andy, sod the men!", so that was lucky. I also didn't offer to read out my poem about internet dating (although I think it's one of my better ones, and I had it with me) because, well, you know, it wasn't actually my show.

At the end, I spoke to a couple who were in the front row, and Andi had picked up that they hadn't said they were in a couple. She asked the girl, who said, No, they were just friends; then she pointed out to the guy that his friend was very attractive, and asked if he'd thought about it, to which he nonchalantly said "Yep", which also got applause. It turned out they were both in shows themselves, one called Mad about the Boy, and the other called Dream Pill, about kids from Nigeria being trafficked. They both sounded really powerful pieces, and I'd have loved to see them.

I set off to catch up with the others for Outland, and for a change, I arrived first. It was quite a hard piece to follow, being very dreamlike, and dipping in and out of childhood and adulthood, and dreamland and reality. I think it drew on the life of Charles Dodgeson, or Lewis Carroll, although confusingly there was the odd Narnia reference thrown in as well. But largely the play was dealing with a younger man trying to break it to his older, and respected friend, that he had a disease and needed to face up to it; needless to say, he dealt with it by running away to Outland and hunting the Snark. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be semi-biographical or not, but it was a stunning piece. After Charles collapsed, and the young couple hugged each other, weeping, the play was clearly over, but as a mark of how moved the audience was, they were going to creep out respectfully without even applause, which seemed to me to be a massive accolade that the audience preferred to believe it was real, and not disturb their final grief, than clap. Needless to say, I lead the applause, which was still quiet and respectful, because I really enjoyed it, and if I hadn't have clapped, I'd have had to wait and explain to the actors why not at the end.

At the end of the evening, Summer set off to nurse her cold, and also ice a cake which she was madly proposing to carry back on the train, in time for Pint and Poetry's Fifth Birthday Extravaganza at Charters the following day. (I had already pandered to her madness by bringing a mixing bowl up with me). Ashley and I wanted to max out on our last day at the Fringe, by staying out late and seeing more stuff. We shouldn't have done. We should have quit while we were ahead, and gone back and had a glass of wine with Summer. We instead, went to see "Stand up, Fall down", and boy, he did. Not literally, although he did have cerebral palsy, but he really didn't have a funny line, nor enough stage presence to carry off his show such as it was. Mind you, it's quite reassuring to have it confirmed to you that stand-up is actually really hard. The cabaret show after that was entertaining, but only in a "this is free" way. I suspect we'd both have preferred some sleep.

What a city! What a Festival! I love it.