Whipping up an audience

The Fringe crowds may have gone, but there are still street performers around - looking to whip up an audience in the Royal Mile.

I was in the city centre today to attend a coffee morning at Mercat Tours HQ in Blair Street vaults - an atmospheric and spooky setting for a good chat with invited guests. Hope they raised lots of money for the MacMillan cause.

Then, at a loose end for a little while, I headed to one of my favourite spots: the National Library of Scotland. To see the David Livingstone exhibition. I remember travelling to Blantyre to visit his birthplace on a school trip (back in the dim and distant past), and being about as uninterested as a Year 6 pupil might be. However, the exhibition in the National Library interests the older me in provoking thoughts about how communications worked then and how drawings and early photographs were so important in providing information about the journeys.

Later, welcoming guests to the cottage, the descendant of a Scottish granny was telling me about eating "fly cemeteries" at his granny's on Thanksgiving. That made me smile.

Edinburgh's Old Town is always teeming with stories.