I've been away a couple of times since I last posted.  This picture is of the Greta in Keswick where I went for a day or two to celebrate Connor's birthday.  We had a lovely meal out in a restaurant near the lake.  I took the train down to Penrith as I've done many times but for the first time I crossed the road from the station to the castle to while away the time before my bus arrived.  The castle is 500 years old but its remains though not extensive are in fine fettle and the park that surrounds it is a pleasant spot.

The other trip was with a bunch of chums to Northumberland not far from Hadrian's wall. I got a lift down, a train being out of the question thanks to Aslef.  We travelled down the A7 which is rightly signposted as the tourist route, for the countryside that you go through is simply lovely as are the small towns en route, especially in the fine sunny summer weather that pertained that day.  The weather continued to be summery throughout the weekend and had it not been for the gentle but chilly breeze I would have been tempted to expose more of my body.  A temptation my chums must be glad didn't arise.

The cultural round here in Edinburgh included a stage adaptation of Anna Karenina which was admirably devised and performed.  Not for the first time an adaptation of a classic novel caused me to declare (inwardly) that I must read the book.  Alas I never will.

I also saw a friend perform in Alan Ayckbourn's How The Other Half Loves.  Like other works of his the staging presents two interiors simultaneously and the characters pop in and out of them both as the plot builds.  It must be a nightmare to direct and to perform in.  The farcical plot concerns infidelity, real and imagined.  It's an old play (1969) so some of the comedy and attitudes strike an odd note to us now but for me at least it was very enjoyable.

I've been doing some acting myself.  Rehearsals have started for Claire's play about mental health which the Grads are doing in the Fringe.  Called crackers (lower case is de rigeur in certain circles) it promises to be fun to do.  Also fun to do is patient simulation.  I did some last year for Napier University's School of Health and Social Care and am doing so again.  The first one was online when three sets of physiotherapy students had a go at dealing with my bad back.  For the second I went out to their Sighthill campus to reprise my role as the long-suffering father of an obstreporous 40 year old with cerebral palsy who can't stand being in a wheelchair, won't cooperate with health professionals and wants to be out on the razzle dazzle as often as she can.  The third scenario I have yet to learn about.

The RSNO finished off their season with Verdi's Requiem.  It was big; about a hundred players and a choir of about two hundred plus four soloists and of course a conductor squeezed onto the Usher Hall stage.  They made gorgeously loud and tuneful noise when required to do so and equally gorgeous but hardly perceptible sounds when that's what Verdi wanted. 

The SNJO  presented an amazing concert.  My attention was drawn to it by the fact that it was billed as incorporating taiko drummers.  Now that's a form of Japanese drumming that I had seen years ago in Leith Theatre during the International Festival and of course I'd just come back from Japan so I was looking forward to it.

I expected that, as when I'd heard the drums in Leith theatre, it would be a visiting group of Japanese drummers.  No such thing.  There's a centre of taiko drumming in Lanarkshire run by a couple who lived in Japan 30 years ago and studied the style with a Japanese master.  They teach taiko at their centre and in Edinburgh and Glasgow.  What's more they've toured the world including Japan.  What's even more is that Tommy Smith came across them 10 years ago and wrote a suite called World of the Gods incorporating them and the gig I went to was a reprise of the performance they gave then.  The suite has 10 movements, each representing one of the many Shinto gods, from the Goddess of the Sun (Amaterasu) to the God of the Moon (Tsukiyomi).  The music was gorgeous and the drumming was brilliant. 

I'd never heard of them or of Tommy's composition but then until today I'd never heard of the National Robotarium which is a 45 minute bus ride from my door.

Claire hosted a Murder Mystery evening which was a very enjoyable social gathering but it remains a mystery to me how anyone could devine who was the guilty party from the operation of the MM kit.  Now with Cluedo the amateur sleuth has a chance.

Thanks to my incredibly cheap Eurosport subscription I've enjoyed quite a number of cracking matches at the French Open Tennis Championships.  Gael Monfils in what I believe may be his final year on the tour was 4-0 down in the 5th set of his first round match and was wracked with cramp.  Hardly able to walk he pulled it back to win 7-5.  You can see the final 10 minutes os so here. 

Other great matches were Rudd versus Rune in a semi-final, Swiatek versus Haddad Maia and Muchova versus Sabalenka in the ladies' semi-finals and Muchova versus Swiatek in the ladies' final.  That latter match is often a bit tame but this one was thrilling.  It was no baseline to baseline slogging match but one in which both players displayed a great variety and skill.  They were pretty evenly matched but Swiatek got there in the end.

The tram extension to Newhaven opened to paying passengers (and to non-payers like me) last week and I hopped onto a tram at Haymarket on my way back from a Napier simulation, took it all the way to the end of the line and back to my stop at McDonald Road. I thought the line would go to Newhaven Harbour but it stops 20 minutes walk short of that which I found slightly disappointing and can't understand.  There's plenty room surely by the harbour and it's an obvious spot.

Lots of interesting stuff has been uncovered during the tram construction.  Perhaps none as interesting as the big wheels in this photo.  They were an essential part of the mechanism that ran Edinburgh's cable operated tram system which was introduced in 1888.  The wheels are mounted a stones throw away from where they were found.  That spot was known as the Pilrig Muddle because it was here that Leith's electric tram system met Edinburgh's cable system and passengers had to disembark to move from one to the other up until the 1920s.

The wheels are mounted in Iona Street with which I have a connection of sorts quite apart from the fact that I live just up the road from it.
 
For most of my life I believed that my roots were Irish on both sides.  But when doing a bit of research to see if I could get myself an Irish passport I found that my maternal grandfather and his antecedents were Scottish at least from the late 18th century.  They may well have been Irish before that of course.  My maternal grandmother I knew was Scottish and worked as a domestic servant/nanny in Edinburgh where she met and married my maternal grandfather.  There were various other relatives in Edinburgh.  My aunt would talk about someone who "married up" and lived in Morningside.  But in Iona Street lived two ladies who I think must have been my great aunts or some sort of removed cousins.  I can only remember once visiting them.  I think I was still at primary school at the time.  I must have a shot at finding them sometime.