Having saved this painting for the nation, admittedly not single-handed, I was happy to trot along to the National Gallery to hear a talk about it followed by a wee swally.

The talk was very interesting indeed so I followed it up enthusiastically a week or so later with Art and the Jacobites.  Not as it turned out nearly as interesting.  Frankly boring, but the evening was saved by scampi and chips plus some pleasant plonk with chums at the New Club.

Yet more art.  I squeezed in a visit to the Rembrant exhibition that had been running all summer just a day or two before it closed.  All that dark Flemish stuff is not entirely to my taste but they can work miracles with zones of light in the darkness and I do like portraits of which there were many.

I went from Rembrant to the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition which has just opened.  It's a spledid collection mostly of posters advertising the attractions of fin du siècle nightlife.  There are some scratchy recordings of the stars of the day to listen to.  I'm sure that in the right place at the right time they were a wow.

That scampi was not my only eating out experience this month.  I've eaten Swiss alpine dumplings in Leith - very tasty; had an excellent French lunch with former workmates; had a mediocre French lunch elsewhere and a pleasant Scottish pre-theatre dinner before Mathew Bourne's Swan Lake.  That's an absolutely wonderful show and so sexy. What an imagination and what thrilling and accomplished dancing.  A couple of the dancers walked past me as I waited for a bus the following morning and I was quite excited to see them.

I much enjoyed hearing Francois Leleux playing the oboe with the SCO last season so it was a pleasure to hear him again.  He played Haydn's oboe concerto which was fine but I actually enjoyed other works on the programme more, notably some Brahms.  More Haydn popped up at another SCO concert.  This time a chorale work, The Seasons.  It was grand.  The chorus sang their hearts out and the soloists were great.   

I heard Catriona Morison sing during the Festival and she was back in Edinburgh this monthe to sing Shéhérazade by Ravel in a splendid RSNO concert under their new Music Director Thomas Søndergård.  He's not a new face for Usher Hall audiences because he has been Principal Guest Conductor for a few years.  He swung into action as the boss with Mahler and Beethoven and followed that up with Grieg and Rachmaninov in the concert that featured Catriona Morison.  I enjoyed both those concerts and were I not nursing a cold in the hopes of it not spoiling my weekend in Keswick I'd be in the Usher Hall again tonight.

I don't know if I can blame my cold on the days I went without central heating while a new boiler was installed but those were cold days in contrast to the mild days that followed, on which the heating seldom came on.  Whatever, my various domestic bits and pieces are gradually reaching the end of their days and being replaced.  A groaning toilet cistern is next in line.

On one of those mild days I sat drinking in the sun with Andrew who happened to be in Edinburgh and was happy to chew the fat with me while Rosemary got on with the serious business of shopping.

I'm catching an early train for my weekend away and luckily I went to collect my pre-purchased tickets today because the machine went through all the motions and told me that it was printing them but disgorged no tickets.  I had to run around a bit to eventually get a man to open the machine and pull them out.  No way I'd have been at the station sufficiently long in advance of my train for that.

Spotted this splendid bird on the hunt for a snack in the Water of Leith.