My Fringe is mapped out in a diary, and it looks quite sparse. However, there are myriad demands on my time and quite a lot to achieve in the next 24 hours alone. A part of me feels exhausted like I've had very little sleep and a lot of physically demanding days in the last week, and another part of me is raring to get fully into the Festival I love in the city I still consider to be my spiritual home.

Yesterday I went and saw 5 different shows. Well, nearly. I knowingly bought tickets for two shows where one ended as the other was due to start. I hoped not to miss much of the second while leaving the first. The first overran, so I missed the first ten minutes of the other. Still, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the first ten minutes as much as I enjoyed the last ten minutes of the show that overran.

I think my record is a 9 show day. I don't know if I'll get to do any of those this year. I have a lot of demands on my time and head-space, and, to be perfectly honest, I'm having a bloomin' marvellous time. I knew that the year would tip up on these weeks, like a see-saw with a midget on one side and a big fat heffalump on the other. I don't know if I'm either character in this metaphor. It doesn't matter.

What I do know is that I feel like I've put a lot of the troubles of the year behind me. Ok, so I still have to sort out my Reading house, but it will be good sorting. Newcastle currently feels sorted, my ex-job is a thing of the past, I've definitely moved into my own space in my house, and I've got a lot of things planned to start in the post-Edinburgh time.

Ok, so there are new problems to face from September onwards. I find the idea of starting a new job to be daunting. I also find it to be a character forming new challenge. Likewise, there's the possible tribulations of a driving ban... but none of these are the problems which hurt me in May and June.

So. I have now to run away from this Starbucks, where I've had a breakfast of coffee and fruit, and I have to sort out the technical things for the show, for which I'm meeting everyone at 1.30. Then there'll be lots of running about, culminating, I hope, in a feeling of both warmth and fuzziness, around midnight.

If this is how life's going to start feeling, then bring it on!