We arrive in Edinburgh in the middle of the second week of the Fringe Festival. As it’s the world’s largest performance arts festival, the town is heaving. Over 25 days, there are more than 51,446 scheduled performances of 3,317 different shows across 262 venues from 58 different countries. And the only show to sell out it’s full run before the Festival even starts, is NZ’s own Rose Matafeo, who is something of a festival darling after winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2018, an a subsequent hit TV show in the UK.

Before we leave NZ I look at the program online, but with over 3,000 shows to choose from, my eyes glaze over, my decision making capabilities fall off the cliff, and my brain says FFS just wing it. So we wing it. And it’s easy. Turn up at one of the multi venue performance areas, and get tickets for whatever’s on next. You might be offended, or bored, or challenged, or laugh out loud, or think deeply, or be annoyed. In this careful world there are audience warnings posted outside shows, but you don’t come to the Fringe if you’re of a sensitive disposition. The only one that scares most people is audience participation.

Over five days we see 10 shows: drag, comedy, drama, music, theatre and love nearly all of it. Then there’s the showpiece, the famous Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which doesn’t come with warnings, except for possible rain, and there’s zero chance of audience participation. We’re looking forward to this. Several years ago the New Zealand International Festival brought the Edinburgh Tattoo to NZ. We went, and it was a fantastic display of synchronised marching, band music, and drumming precision. The Royal Navy is the boss this year, so after a rousing opening with about 72,000 drummers and pipers, they form up into the shape of an anchor.

We enjoy most of what follows, but somewhere along the way the Tattoo has morphed. There’s no commentary so it’s a guessing game as to who’s who. We recognise the Swiss drummers from seeing them in Wellington a few years ago. Their coordinated exchanges of drumsticks is mesmerising and very memorable. There are some American marines – for some extraordinary reason they sing the theme to Top Gun. I half expect Tom Cruise to rappel down the castle. We have Highland dancing. O-kaaayyy. However we’re a bit confused when Bollywood comes to town. We have the Taj Mahal projected onto the Castle, two glittery singers, a troupe of Bhangra dancers and Rajasthani bagpipers. We’re more confused when women in floaty frocks drift into the arena and sing songs we don’t recognise but hope have so ething to do with the sea. We have more singing and dancing than displays of military skills. I’m all for cultural diversity but failing to see the military connection. The clue is in the title: Military Tattoo. This show feels like a version of Britain’s Got Talent. The creative director of the show needs some time in the naughty corner to think about their decisions.

A day trip to Dundee is full of surprises. Towards the end of the Victorian era, the city was famous for Jute, Jam and Journalism. By the end of the 19th century, about 40,000 families relied on jute production for their living, as a majority of the city’s workers were employed in jute mills and related industries. Jute, which is a kind of grass, came from the Indian subcontinent and was processsed using whale oil, another big industry. The jam is marmalade as we know it, traditionally made from deliciously bitter Seville oranges. Journalism refers to the publishing firm DC Thomson, founded in 1905, still operating today, and publishing newspapers, magazines and children’s comics including Beano and Dandy. Remember Dennis the Menace, and Desperate Dan? So important the comic industry to the fortunes of the town, there’s a massive sculpture of Desperate Dan in the square.

Our friend Fiona, a former policewoman who shall remain anonymous, says junkies can be added to the list. And she’s right. The release that week of the national statistics on drug deaths show Glasgow and Dundee are top of the list in Scotland, with rates twice those of other cities. This really is Trainspotting country. The movie not the anoraks.

On the other hand, there’s the first V&A museum in the world outside London and the first ever dedicated design museum in Scotland. It stands at the centre of a 1 billion pound transformation of Dundee’s waterfront, and the building itself is gobsmacking. The Japanese architect Kengo Kuma (I’ve never heard of him either) used the cliffs along the east coast of Scotland as inspiration, and seeing said cliffs I can make the connection. The shape also echoes the Antarctic research ship Discovery which was built in Dundee in 1900 and took Captain Scott on his first Antarctic expedition. The ship returned home to Dundee in 1986 and is open for visitor tours.

While the weather doesn’t scream “it’s a great day to go to the Blair Atholl International Horse Trials, that take place against the stunning backdrop of Blair Castle and the Highlands” we are going anyway. It’s on our way to Inverness to start the North Coast 500, but more importantly our friend Lynne has qualified to compete and we want to show support. This thing is huge. And muddy. And there’s a lot of whisky tasting.

It runs over five days with all the usual suspects: show jumping, dressage, cross country, showing and so on. It’s an education to see the water jumps for the cross country up close. They are terrifying. We’re only there for a half day, bundled up against the weather, ducking showers, tiptoeing around the mud, and wave goodbye and good luck. Even without our presence to cheer her on later in the weekend, Lynne and Delboy snag ribbons, and qualify for the Grand Final to be held at an unknown future date. Congratulations! That calls for a whisky.