Edinburgh En Fête

Walking up the Royal Mile this morning, His Lordship and I were amazed to see the whole street seemingly en fête with hordes of tourists milling about, stalls set up selling everything from winter hats and scarves to silver jewellery, and what I presume to be resting actors holding forth on the enthralling history of this central part of old Edinburgh to huge audiences. We followed the noise of music up to the doors of St Giles to find this garlanded group producing very pleasant music drowning out the ever present lone piper playing in the door of the High Court opposite. The collecting bag in front of the group suggests cash optimism on a large scale.

As we turned into George IV bridge we were intrigued to see a large white pick up van attempting a U turn through the cobbled gap between two white bollards in the middle of the road, which allows pedestrians to cross the road half way at a time. Unfortunately he misjudged his turn and went straight over one of the bollards with much scraping and grinding, coming to a halt with the bollard caught underneath.
We watched transfixed as the van driver calmly reversed and then continued the turn with more grinding, after which the bollard sprang back up, but his exhaust did not. 1-0, bollard versus white van undercarriage.

It's a pity the driver didn't put out a collecting box- the spectators would have donated willingly for having such street entertainment.