I'm very fond of boasting about how well bussed I am in this part of town so you can imagine my distress when I went out to catch a 13 the other day on discovering that it no longer runs past my door.

Now it's not a bus I use often, being one of those that run at long intervals and never on a Sunday, but meandering as it does through the New Town I had it marked as perhaps being of future use when Ewan eventually finds his nest. And it's a blow to art lovers from Lochend to Leith Walk since they now have no direct connection to the Gallery of Modern Art.

On this occasion that's where I was headed - to see the Charles Avery exhibition. If you like Giles cartoons you'll enjoy Avery's drawings. Many of them feature a bent old creature who reminded me strongly of the Giles Granny figure, even though this one sports a triangular coolie style hat. Fans of Tolkien and that sort of made-up universe will enjoy the fantasy texts accompanying the work. And according to the chap who introduced the exhibition (who did not dwell on, nor even mention, the Giles connection) this is art world beating stuff so rush to see it.

My distress at the semi demise of the 13 was nothing as to my distress on finding a beanie hat on the floor of the lift when I came home. Connor had assured me that there had been no lift lunatic incidents during my absence. Has he struck again or is this simply the case of a lift user warmed by coming in from the cold removing his hat and failing to stuff it into his pocket?

A more sinister explanation occurs to me. If lift lunatic incidents have only broken out afresh since I got back could it be some modern Jeckyll and Hyde phenomenon? Does this inoffensive pensioner turn into the lift lunatic at certain conjunctures of the planets, or perhaps when he's had one too many?

I saw a brilliant show at the Traverse last night. Described as a dark comedy it was certainly funny and the audience, many of whom it turned out were friends or relatives of the performers, thoroughly enjoyed the humour. In contrast it seems to the previous night's audience, who it was decided in the post-show discussion must all have been Edinbuggers.

I suspect that equally oppressive and destructive family environments exist here but that the eastern response to seeing it displayed is to feel uncomfortable rather than to laugh. This comedy you see concerns a west of Scotland Catholic family headed by a drunken, posturing bully of a father whose sins are visited on his children. Founded on his own experience it took Paul Higgins five years to write and you have to hope that it was a thoroughly cathartic process for no-one would want to carry baggage like that around with them in later life.

In response to a question he said that while he could watch the play relatively dispassionately and indeed laugh at the humour, none of his immediate family had seen it and that he thought they would find it hard.

The father is a brilliantly drawn character, a drunken bully as I said but with a cutting and sardonic wit and deep down a loathing of what he has become. Gary Lewis brings him vigorously to life in a superb performance. It was evident from what he said after the show that his portrayal was grounded in a very sensitive understanding.

"Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us" runs at the Traverse till Saturday and I'll be surprised if it doesn't get another outing very soon.

I don't imagine that Noel Coward would have been any happier with the film version of Easy Virtue than we were though many other members of the audience laughed a lot. Unfortunately the director hadn't put any effort into the coruscating bitterness with which Coward counterpoints his bons mots.

My own virtue came under strain on Sunday night when I found myself realising just after leaving Tesco that I was carrying 12 bottles of wine but had been charged for only 6. I had to go back and own up. At two quid a bottle for a quite delicious Australian plonk on extra special offer they were a bargain that didn't merit being sullied by theft. Even though the theft would have been unintentional. Had it been a branch that I don't use daily maybe I'd have been tempted.

Even without the excitement of the wine it was a notable weekend. Ewan was around sussing out the New Town's possibilities for his projected relocation to Scotland later in the year and Fiona was here preparing the way for attacking the fringe with her prizewinning production of The Island.

An additional excitement hit my inbox this morning. A sailing friend offered me a berth on his yacht for a leg of the Rallye des isles du soleil. I'll join Caramel at Santarem on the Amazon in April, sail downriver to the mouth at Afua and then on to Cayenne and Trinidad. I said yes before I had a chance to confuse myself with the pros and cons.

Yes the internet could come to my rescue. Exactly the diary I want is available directly from Collins' site. However I found a diary of the size I want for 79 pence so if I can just discipline myself to carry a pencil around with me I can do the business and save a fiver.

Apart from searching for diaries I've been processing photos of my holiday in India in 1984. I've put the whole lot, turkeys included, on Picasa and a choice few accompanied by such travel diary notes as I made before running out of steam onto my personal website.

An old friend has kindly sent me scans of an NKAS programme to fill a gap in my corpus. This is a show Ewan was in. I thought it was one in which Connor also took part, playing in the orchestra, but it isn't. However Alan (the friend) has a programme for that show too and has promised to scan it for me. That would fill the final NKAS gap but it took 18 months for the first one to reach me so I'm not holding my breath.

I'm just back from Portugal where the sky really was as blue as appears in this photo of the castle in Lisbon. It was that way for the whole week.

Our rented flat was very well positioned for getting around the city, being near a metro station. It's disadvantages were its eccentric room layout, its collapsing bed, its limited supply of food preparation tools (one blunt bread-knife) and by the time we left its broken teapot. Oh, and one of the keys.

We saw the principal sights, ate the principal dishes, drank the principal beverages and escaped the attentions of the principal felons, said to be pickpockets.

So it's back to the frustrations of ordinary life. What has happened to the supply of small, cheap diaries with a pencil in the spine? Have Collins and Letts, those giants of Scottish diary production, decided that small is ugly and that pencils in the spine are potential deadly weapons?

A visit to six shops uncovered nothing. Will the internet come to my rescue?