Over and Out ..... 'til 2014

It's gone ... over ... finished ... no more Edinburgh Fringe until next year. The big purple cow has been deflated, the Spielgeltent folded up and put back in its box and traffic once again returned to George Street. From donuts to drambuie, chinese to crepes, burgers, hot dogs, pakora and mexican fare, the pop-up food stalls, bikes and caravans have packed up and gone home. All is calm at the Pleasance. No more search and find for empty seats, a bum numbing inch of wall or spare centimetre of grass, stair or wooden floor, a chance to sit back and enjoy a glass of wine, pint of lager and a bite to eat. The queues that snaked noisily in and out of the courtyards have long gone. Gone too are the Fringe celebrities, performing or enjoying a show, wandering around chatting to the crowds, enduring countless requests for signatures and friendly snaps - and always with a smile on their faces. My favourites? Tim Vine, master of the one-liner, a brilliant show from a wonderful comedian, and a genuinely smashing guy to boot. Sandy Toksvig, lovely lady, warm, friendly, clever and a comic genius. I could go on and on but I won't. Guess the Fringe brings out the best in people, famous or otherwise. And this year even the weather behaved, sun out, rain switched off for much of the festival.
It is difficult to believe that the Fringe was ever in town, so efficient was the clean up. No more Ed Byrne, Reginald D. Hunter, Paul Merton or Milton Jones hanging from railings, adorning bus stops or peppering every inch of naked wall. The streets of Edinburgh have returned to normal - if indeed they are ever normal. Sleeping gnomes have returned to the land of fairy tales, stunning costumes have been carefully packed away, the crazy and the insane carted off to their own particular asylum - and I mean that in the nicest sense of the word. Students, budding thespians, those who could act, those who tried to act, those who just got out there and had fun, all have returned from whence they came. Magicians have vanished, choirs moved on, comedians transported their humour to different climes.   
How I miss the street theatre, the human statues, acrobats, jugglers, fire-eaters, risk takers, audience grabbers and insane mime artists. Only eleven months to go and they will be back, filling the streets with laughter, filling the air with a multitude of oohs and aahs, cheers and applause. This is how they earn their living, travelling the world from city to city spreading their talents, sharing with everyone the universal language of street theatre. If they couldn't speak the lingo, out came a whistle. Seemed to be quite effective here. They so obviously love what they do - as does every performer at the Fringe - and their warmth and enthusiasm was incredibly infectious.
As you walk around the city now, one or two posters still remain, a little bedraggled around the edges, the last remnants of a truly remarkable festival in a truly remarkable place. People flocked to Edinburgh from across the globe to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the fine weather. The festival season came and went, September is now with us. Just around the corner Christmas awaits, cards are creeping into the shops, festive food is slowly sneaking onto the shelves. But that's a whole new story ..........