This morning, I had planned to go for a run with Honey the Dog, as we didn’t go on a long run or walk yesterday and she was more restless. But my energy was not there and it was forecast to rain. In fact, it didn’t rain for most of the day, that I noticed, but I finally decided to go out for a run about 4pm. I got my running gear on, looked out the window and it was torrential rain!!
After our run in the rain a couple of days ago (Day 155) I was reluctant to go out again, but thought I didn’t want to deprive Honey of another day of short walks. So I found my woolly hat and went out. Luckily, it was a heavy shower that only lasted about 20 minutes, so it wasn’t long until it had stopped.
I ran round Arthur’s Seat (clockwise), 8km, without stopping! So my photos were taken whilst running – well apart from the long one and when Honey had a wee swim.
Felt great. I am definitely getting better at running and have gone past the fitness barrier, so now loving it.
I am thinking of making it regular, running every other day and doing push-ups on my day off from running. Will see how that goes.
This evening, Honey and I are both physically tired. Feels good 🙂
Today I was interviewed by the Edinburgh Evening News to appear in a weekly column – “the day in the life of….”. Exploring different people’s careers, mine being a magician. He said he would email me this evening if it will be in the paper tomorrow, he hasn’t email me, so I guess not. But I may buy a copy just in case 🙂
He said he would ask for it to also be put online, so hopefully I can share it with you all here. In the interview I talked about this blog and gave the website address, so we may have lots of new readers next week 🙂
I’ve been missing the Pleasance Courtyard quite a lot this week, I usually have such a magical August, entertaining everyone and performing so much.
Check out the video below of me performing there last year:
Face-Mask Corner
Please send photos of you wearing your face-mask/face-covering or perhaps you have a favourite of your friends, loved ones or family? Also let me know where you got it from, I can include that too!
Otherwise, I have to keep harassing folk to pose for photos 😉
Today we have Felicity. She was reluctant to have her photo taken alone, so Jessica from yesterday (Day 156) joined her!
Felicity said she has lots of face-masks, this one was sent to her by her mum.
Thanks Felicity! It seems to cover quite a nice part of the face and the first grey / black one that we’ve featured.
Readers Corner
Nothing in here today 🙁
Please send me your thoughts on the blog, how your life has been, what you have been up to. This corner is just for you!!
It Made Me Smile
With my missing The Pleasance Courtyard, I saw this wee film of Anthony Alderson, the Director asking for donations. The film made me smile and also cry!
This year all Edinburgh Fringe venues are Crowdfunding to get some of money they have lost.
So many well known people have started out at The Pleasance Courtyard performing there.
This is the same for me! I started magic busking there in 2009, without asking permission just on the fly. But then I contacted the Director, Anthony Alderson, about 5 years ago to ask if I could do magic busking there officially. He said they don’t do busking at The Pleasance Courtyard, but after I explained I had been doing magic busking there for years, he couldn’t say no!
Last year some photos of me performing were taken to go into The Pleasance archives, as Anthony said I am now “A Pleasance Icon”.
So if you have ever seen me performing there or just love the atmosphere, maybe consider donating some money (www.pleasance.co.uk/donate)
Music Corner
Please keep sharing your music, Spotify Playlist, YouTube or any other form.
Today, we have my second Spotify playlist 🙂
When I was a student at the University of Dundee, in my 3rd year, I lived in a cottage, with a number of people including my friend Nic. The cottage was about 5 miles away from Dundee city centre at Baldovie Toll, luckily we had cars. The rent was super cheap, I can’t remember how much, but something like £50 a month. Also, the story goes that Rabbie Burns stayed in Baldovie Toll, so that drew us to it too. Although I can’t find that doing an internet search!
Anyway, my friend Nic had loads of vinyl singles, so I decided to make a compilation tape of them all. There was a little bit of space at the end, so I added a few of my own vinyl singles.
With my new cassette converter, I’ve turned it into my second playlist. It was a lot harder than my first one because the recordings were so bad. Also some of the tracks had that “Ber-BER…Ber-BER…Ber-BER” noise that you sometimes get from records.
About half the tracks Shazam, didn’t recognise the song 
so I had to listen to the words and type them into an internet search. Only one took me a long time to find as it had multiple different musical versions, but the same words.
When I originally recorded the tape, the first track ‘A Room At The Heartbreak Hotel’ by U2 was at the wrong speed, so it was slower. After recording it, Nic listened to on the tape and pointed this out. Obviously I couldn’t include this on my Spotify playlist. Also, one track was not on Spotify, but I’ve thrown away the piece of paper with them all written on, so can’t remember which that is.
I’ve called it ‘Second Mouse’ because Nic was studying Zoology at University and did a PhD on how mice communicate with each other. After getting married he lived on a canal boat, which he called Second Mouse. He now lives in a house. So this playlist is dedicated to the Second Mouse canal boat.
The photo on the playlist is one that Nic took himself, he said it took ages to find a red squirrel in a black and white forest 😉
So here we have Second Mouse – Side A’s of a collection of Vinyl Singles originally compiled on a cassette in the early 1990’s.
As I come to the end of this blog, I have just re-watched the Pleasance video of Anthony talking and its made me cry again! I think that Evening News interview, made me start thinking about all what I love about performing and entertaining people with magic. I am now starting to make plans (in my head) on how to get back into it with Covid Safety measures.
Was so good to go for a run today, it definitely shifts my energy!
I am tired now.
Today the weather has been cold (about 12 degrees centigrade) and cloudy. That one heavy rain shower, that I saw. This evening, when I looked at the window about 9pm it was dark. So our bedtime walk was in the dark, hence why my usual photo is not so good.
I hope your week has been going well.
Stay Safe!
Jim x