Fringing

This week is a sociable one. Having won free tickets for a book festival event, on Monday I went with a friend to a reading by a Chinese author who wrote a novel about Chinese women experiencing the one-child-policy (click here for The Dark Road by Jian Ma reviews). I didn’t know a whole lot about the topic and what I know now is very gruesome and brutal, and I won’t get into details, but it was a good event, and I liked the vibe of a book festival. The crowd wasn’t that different from the Jazz&Blues Festival crowd - less hipsters and more seniors than expected - but the whole thing happened on Charlotte Square, a nice little green park in the city where I sat down at a tree in the sun to read a book since I was early.

On Tuesday, I met for a few pints with some of my new friends that I made when volunteering - two French ladies and a Scotsman - and we then went on to see a free comedy show (Canadian Byron Bertram) in a dungeon just off the Royal Mile, which was funny enough, but the pints I had had before certainly helped. And lastly, we went to the BBC blue tent and saw a live radio broadcast show which is a really strange concept, since most of the audience won’t ever see what happens on stage. There was a group of young and well-built shepherds from Lesotho (Sotho Sounds) who made their own string instruments from oil cans and fishing lines, and clad in very short sheep skin kilts they performed their music which sounded really good - but I was happy I could also look at them for their wide smiles and great upper bodies… Then there was some folk music, and finally a couple of London music students who performed some classical pieces on two marimbas (a massive xylophone), which was surprisingly good as well, and funny to watch.

Tonight, my flatmate is throwing me a birthday dinner (well, me and two of her other friends whose birthday it was as well), and it’s good not to have any plans for tomorrow as the weekend will be filled with festival activities again. On Saturday, I’m going to my first Ceilidh (Scottish folk dance)! Katharina, what should I wear?