BOOM!

And so ends the Edinburgh festival. The banners are down, the performers have left, and the city is back to its normal self once more, though feeling emptier than it did before. It reminds me much as home feels after the Christmas decorations have been taken down - a brief sense of melancholy soon to fade. For all that people complain about the influx of tourists come festival season (and apparently Edinburgh is host to no less that 13 distinct festivals during that time), I have to confess that I love the vibrancy of the city when the festivals are in full swing, and my heart has even been know to swell with civic pride.

Fortunately the festival always goes out with a bang rather a whimper, and tonight was no exception. As usual the castle was host to a spectacular fireworks display. Sadly circumstances beyond our control that we arrived later than we'd originally intended - a bit of a nuisance since Kerry had planned to arrive early enough to secure a decent spot for taking photographs of the display. We didn't end up in too poor a spot in the end, finding ourselves above the car park on Castle Terrace. It afforded us a fine view of the rockets, but it was off to one side, which meant we missed many of the smaller fireworks that go off in front of the castle, including the now famous waterfall effect. Still what we could see was rather pretty indeed and included several unusual effects I hadn't seen before, notably rockets whose corona changed colour after exploding and more rockets whose trails veered off in numerous different directions after spreading out in a near perfect circle. All very difficult to describe, all rather beautiful to behold.

One interesting effect of being so close to a car park was the effect the larger rockets had on the numerous parked cars. Rather impressively they managed to trigger a number of car alarms. The best was saved for the very last however, as the final rocket, rather than producing a visual display, seemed designed to produce an impressive concussive blast instead. Suffice it to say that it was felt rather than seen. Not only did it set off an impressive number of car alarms, but also managed to trigger some of burgler alarms as well.

Top stuff!