Not with a fizzle...

So that's the Festival finished for another year. It's been a really good one. This year for the first time I watched the closing fireworks from on Princes Street too which was fun, especially since the weather stayed pretty much perfect throughout and the crowds were tolerable.

Lovely atmosphere. I met up with Denise, Ivan and Sonja, and the four of us oohed and aahhed our way through the show from the foot of Castle Street - well within earshot of the concert in the park (another advantage to being on Princes Street rather than up a hill watching from a distance - as I always have in the past - is not having inane Forth One DJs interjecting waffle inbetween the pieces).

I think my favorite non-pyrotechnic bit of the evening were the two excitable young German tourists in front of us: they'd set up their DSLRs on tripods and were snapping some splendid shots of the show* so I assumed that had been the draw for their visit, until they turned to us in a gap between pieces and asked "this happens every year?". Turns out they just happened to be in town on a school trip! They'd heard about the fireworks this afternoon and turned up on spec. They seemed amused when (having totted up the annual big display count as 2) we dismissed the Tattoo Fireworks (which they had seen photos of) as not really counting "because it's only small". I laughed too - Edinburgh does funny things to your perspective on these things: Ivan reckons he saw more fireworks in the first twelve months of living here than in his entire life beforehand.

Nice to be reminded how special this place is.

Partly I think because I was prevented from seeing this year's Hogmanay display, partly because we're close to the start of my 35th year, and partly because the start of 2011 was (to put it mildly) rubbish for me, but I can't help looking on tonight's display as a kind of personal New Year celebration: I feel energised (as often seems to happen at the start of Autumn) and optimistic. Committed to moving forward into more new and exciting things in this wonderful place I get to call home.

* unlike the feeble efforts of my phone. I shot plenty but only really got one halfway good image. Ah well.