Monday 30th August

I'm up early again - partly because my brother wakes me to say goodbye as he heads off to work at something ridiculous like 6am (teachers really do have it tough, don't they?) and partly because the sun warms this room so efficiently as soon as it rises. I can't be bothered getting up quite yet, especially as my train back to London doesn't leave until 11.30, so I read for a while and flick the laptop on to read various blogs and catch up with the football news. It seems we won again on Saturday (2-0 v Stoke City) and I'm so unsurprised that I'm in danger of getting bored of the efficacy of my own team. That can't be good. Maybe we need to lose a couple on the bounce now to keep things interesting.

I finally get my act together at about 9 and tidy up the fold-out bed before saying goodbye to my brother's girlfriend and wandering down the stairs towards the Meadows. It's a beautiful morning and I've got quite a bit of time to kill, so I take my time and stroll through the city reflecting on what an amazing place it is and all the different things it's meant to me over the years. Up to the age of 18 it was the city where my grandfather lived and we'd visit him in his flat most years, going out to the swings in the Meadows in the summer, the Tattoo at festival time and the pantomime at Christmas. The smell of the brewery takes me back there every time it wafts across my path (and it's sad that, apparently, it's not going to be around much longer).

Then, when my Grandpa died, I had fallen in love with Edinburgh properly and promptly applied for university here, which I started in 2003. The course wasn't the right choice, alas, but I spent a formative 9 months living here - in a terrible flat surrounded by OK people but doing some exciting things from time to time. Now, 6 years after I moved away, Edinburgh is just the place where my brother lives and where the festival happens - and while every location has some strange memory from either my childhood or early adulthood, it all seems oddly distant and unreal, like it was someone else who'd been here before.

I walk along George IV Bridge and get a sausage sandwich for breakfast from a cafe, sitting on a bench at the top of Victoria Street to eat it. I really do have a lot of time to kill - so I dawdle down Cockburn Street towards Rose Street to go to Fopp, with a vague plan to get my stepdad a birthday present. Given that it's a bank holiday in England, I know I'll also need to post it before I go - so I get the present and detour to WHSmith to get a jiffy bag and stamps before posting it in the station. Rather pleased with my efficient present-work, I head to the train platform with half an hour to spare and sit waiting patiently where my carriage is due to stop. It's clear, even this early, that the train will be busy - as is to be expected with hundreds of performers no doubt returning to London today - but secure in the knowledge that I have my seat booked I refuse to be panicked about the potential sardine-can nature of the journey.

I take my seat and the train leaves on time - meaning I can get the laptop set up and blog my last few days. I soon get tired of typing, however, and decide to put a film on to watch. I only have a couple on the hard drive but I load up Superbad as it's always watchable and is surprisingly long for a comedy movie. I do find myself fast forwarding the slightly visually rude bits though, mainly to avoid offending the sensibilities of the old lady sat next to me (particularly as she appears to be reading some sort of religious scripture).

We arrive into Kings Cross shortly after 4pm and I scramble through the busy bank holiday tube system to get home in good time. I'm back by 5 and, feeling that it's a slightly weird time for both of us to be home together, K and I decide to go for a walk. We stroll up towards Priory Park and up to Park Road, before heading back along the Broadway via Tesco to grab a bottle of wine to have with dinner. Back at home - already feeling rather tired by this point - K puts together an amazing dinner of chicken fajitas, and after a couple of glasses of wine I'm totally ready for bed. Unfortunately it's only 9pm, so we put on the DVD of the Battlestar Galactica mini-series I stole from my brother's house (expecting little but finding it rather entertaining) and finally submit to exhaustion somewhere around the second hour.