The Dean Village is a tranquil green oasis on the Water of Leith, only five minutes walk from Princes Street. In the past the village was the centre of the milling of water mills and the remnants of the industry can still be seen today. We went for a walk along the Water of Leith up to the impressive Dean Bridge designed by Thomas Telford, and the classical temple of St Bernard’s Well.

The most striking building in the Dean Village is Well Court, recently restored with the help of Edinburgh World Heritage. Built in the 1880s as model housing for local workers.

This is Richard Herring and Sarah Millican during a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Richard Herring has been performing at  the Edinburgh Festival for the last twenty five years. He is comedian and writer, whose early work includes his involvement in the double-act, Lee and Herring with Stuart Lee. He had a regular podcast with writer Andrew Collings until recently and has a daily podcast from the festival recorded at the Stand Comedy Club. Sarah Millican won the best newcomer award at the festival in 2008 and has gone on to have her own TV show on BBC which has been commissioned for a second series.

This is Billy a homeless man in Edinburgh. Billy told me he has been on the street since he left the British Army a number of years ago seemingly abandoned by a state that no longer needed him.

This is a sax player on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh entertaining the crowd during The Edinburgh Festival. The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August. Though the festivals are put on by various organizations unrelated to each other, and so are officially separate events, they are regarded by many visitors as part of the same event; and together they form the largest annual cultural festival in the world.

This is Edinburgh Castle. Spent a lovely day catching a few shows at the festival and meeting up with our friend Robert.  Edinburgh Castle is a fortress which dominates the skyline of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, from its position atop the volcanic Castle Rock. Human habitation of the site is dated back as far as the 9th century BC, although the nature of early settlement is unclear. There has been a castle here since at least the reign of David I in the 12th century.

It was my sister Dolores’ birthday today and her son Sean (helped by her other son Michael) baked a chocolate cake topped with almonds and this is the piece I got. Lovely!

Derrylaughan GFC are producing a version of “Give My Head Pace” (yes “pace” not “peace”) to raise funds for the club which will run in Coalisland in September. Over the past few recession hit years GAA clubs have tried all sorts of things to help keep their clubs a float in bad times. Boxing and dancing have been very popular but Derrylaughan have gone down the route of producing a theatre show. They needed to film a sequence for the show down near their pitch which involved marching an Orange Lodge and flute band around the Washingbay corner a sight that has never been seen before. Filming for “Give My Head Pace” Paddy Gervin (cameraman), Emiear Devlin (BBC News Reporter) John Joe Coney (Uncle Andy) and Aiden Taggart (Billy).

These are members of the junior group of The Craic Youth Theatre Coalisland who took part in the week long summer drama academy held at Craic this week. This year is the 8th annual summer drama academy and this year over fifty young people took part and they presented a show case of their work this afternoon to family and friends.

This is my wife Kierna lost in thought.

Really looking forward to The Edinburgh Festival this year. This is the Hedges BB where we will spend a great week.