07:23 I’m at Southampton Airport. I got petrol, parked at the station & had a disagreement with the ticket machine and still got through security one hour and ten minutes after leaving home. It was misty this morning and then the mist vanished at Canford Bottom, after giving me a quick glimpse of a huge yellow sun through the mist. Driving east at sunrise is fun – as was the idiot at the Ringwood junction who came up and swerved in front of me from my left, swooped around the car in front and then slid away across two lanes.

10:15 We’re in Edinburgh but waiting to be allowed off the plane. I was randomly allocated 16C and I’ve decided I really don’t like not being able to see what’s going on. Also the plane was very hot
Five minutes after I started writing that, I was outside the airport heading for the tram. The bus is right outside the door but the tram is more fun, especially if you get one of the seats right at the front.

15:37 I’ve moved into my little student room on Cowgate. It’s noisy because it literally overlooks Cowgate but at least that means it’s nice and central. I picked up my tickets this morning at the Underbelly, had first lunch sitting under there looking at the big board and hoping to spot something as good as Prophetic Beth (Werewolf Live sounds like it could be promising) and then went off for my first show of 2018: The Amazing Bubble Man. He blows bubbles for an hour, he’s a man and he’s amazing. Not a lie on the poster. The target audience (small kids) are not great. So many taken out, brought back in, arrived three quarters of the way in or just plain yelled or shrieked or fidgeted for an hour. They also do a late night adults only bubble show but that doesn’t start until about the 15th.

After I’d settled into my room, it was off to the Pleasance to see Adam Hess and Marcus Brigstocke, time to come back to my room for half an hour then back to George Square for Andrew Maxwell and the Pleasance again for the Nouse Next Door’s late night show.

When I came out it was cold – not freezing cold but cold enough to want my jumper. As for Cowgate, I thought it was going to be noisy but I hadn’t thought that it might be even noisier at night than day. It’s like being in the middle of the pub and closing the window makes no difference to the noise levels at all, so let’s hope when it says it’s open until 3am that it shuts up very quickly after that.