Day 2 in Edinburgh

Woke up to bright sunshine and headed down to Stockbridge to sample some coffee. Tried some 'artisan roasters' - definitely a very poor comparison to coffee places at Crows Nest but we sat at a table in brilliant sunshine admiring the lovely houses across the road so no real problem.  Caught bus into the city centre and immediately stumbled into a shop called 'Fat Face'.  Love the name and they were having a sale.  Forgot to mention was a clothing store that I was somewhat familiar with from previous visits.  Walked out with a couple of new tops and carried around a bag with a Fat Face label for the rest of the day. We then wandered into a gigantic bookshop - Waterstones and decided were dropping in for a further visit before we left for France and spent a little while in a great card shop with laugh out loud funny cards.

Then thought we had better get down to business and check out some Fringe shows.  Some of the venues have been moved around from my last visit but the set up with lists of shows everywhere and tapped up reviews is the same.  We chose a show called "The Humble Quest for Universal Genius" because primarily it had David O'Doherty in it.  However Mr O'Doherty was a no-show for no apparent reason (Grrr) and we had a substitute.  Was still pretty good - like a comedic game show with 2 contestants who had to answer questions essentially to see who was smarter interspersed with funny videos and a funny compere. We followed this with a lovely lunch at The Potting Shed and Stephen happily sampled some dark beer. We then wandered over to the Pleasance Courtyard and made note of sold out shows as some indication of what would be good to see on another day.  Ended up going to see a show called "Backstage in Biscuit Land".  Stephen saw this performer last year.  It is essentially a one woman show but she has tourettes so has a 'helper' on stage.  Very clever show - funny but also had a message about how you treat people with conditions such as hers. "Biscuit" is one of the words she says on a frequent involuntary basis along with a few others I can't really put in a G rated blog.  The 'helper' is an actress who has to do a lot of improvisation because the tourettes means she is never quite sure what is going to come out of the performers mouth. It was a great show - packed out - we got the last 2 seats. We finished the night at a favourite noodle place - lots of fresh noodle and rice dishes to choose from.  Booked a couple of shows for tomorrow and a Sunday night one that is sold out until then.  Great atmosphere at the place even with the Festival having been going for some 3 weeks - still lots of people handing out pamphlets trying to get you to go to their show, lots of people in dress up and tourists everywhere.