Saturday morning is wet. Very, very wet. However, not even Edinburgh does wet like Dartmoor does so it's just a matter of donning the waterproofs and trudging the 15 minutes to the bus stop.
Today is a busy day. There's leafleting on the Royal Mile, the media meet-up at Fringe Central and then my first performance at Ryrie's Bar, Haymarket. Long day, long bus rides, lots of walking and a few nerves here and there.
If I were in total 100% physical health it would be a long day. But the beloved body is up for the challenge and the somewhat over-stretched brain is doing well and manages to get me off the bus at the right stop for Haymarket.
I'm meeting up with an angel called Sarah Proctor on the Royal Mile. She is a journalist with My Weekly magazine in Dundee and is a fan of the work I have done for them. She said something gorgeous about the pocket novel I wrote for them which I called For the Love of Dog and they retitled Heart's Haven. She said 'it raised the bar for pocket novels.' Coo.
Anyway, I asked on Facebook if anyone was willing to help me distribute flyers. And she said 'yes.' So she's taken a one-and-a-half-hour train journey from Dundee, picked up a couple of hundred leaflets from Ryrie's (to where they were delivered by the printers) and is already accosting innocent passers-by before I've got out of bed.
It takes a while to find her once I've got my own leaflets, caught a second bus and walked down from Prince's Street so I'm doing some distributing of my own. There are literally more than a hundred other people doing the same thing. More Fringe performers than punters by the look of it.
I do have a unique angle which seems to catch attention even if it's only through amazement. It goes something like this:
'Please give a home to these lost and lonely comedy flyers which have spent the whole of their tragically-short life confined in a cardboard box. They only seek a comfortable pocket or handbag and to be kept in that place by the front door where you put things you might want someday. And then you can recycle them sometime about Christmas and they'll know their life was worthwhile.'
It's probably not the best of pitches — and it doesn't say anything about the show — but it amuses me and 20 flyers have gone by the time I find Sarah.
We have never met before but over coffee (which I normally never drink but, hey, energy is needed) we get on like a house on fire. I remain amazed as to why a total stranger would take a whole day to help another virtual stranger but then I always am. As Tennessee Williams wrote, 'I have always depended on the kindness of strangers' and I've very rarely been wrong. But I like continuing to be amazed and delighted.
Sarah continues to leaflet after I have to split in order to get to Fringe Central for the Media meet up. We will meet again tonight for the show.
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