I'm properly excited about the Fringe now. And a little fluttery with anticipation about the first time in years that I shall attend the Book Festival. 

I'm reviewing again - again, with interest and anticipation. Liam Rudden changed the strategy last year from 'we pick' to 'he picks' and I saw all sorts of stuff that I would never in one million years have chosen. We're back to 'we pick' (subject to his approval) this year but I've sent him a wish list and a maybe list in the hopes that he'll send me to see some stuff that will surprise and amaze me as The Shawshank Redemption did last year. So we shall see.

I'm excited about Richard Dawkins and the Letters of Note man (hopefully complete with Benedict Cumberbatch) in the Book Festival. I'm champing at the bit to see Letters Home which comes book-festival-site-specifically from Grid Iron, directed by Zinnie Harris. I hope it's as fun as it could be.

In the Fringe, I have tickets booked for a preview of something at the Traverse, the name of which I've shamefully forgotten. I have a full price ticket for a play called Lippy which - at a slightly gulp inducing £19 - I hope will be good. I cannot wait for Huff as I missed it last time around. I have a ticket for a thing called Forgotten Voices, the 'play' though it'll surely be more verbatim theatre of the Imperial War Museum collection of books of first-hand testimonials from World War One 'participants'. Obviously I eagerly await my dear friend Ross' (Antony Neilson's) Wonderful World Of Dissocia and SJ's Malfi. And my most prized Fringe ticket is for Light, the very eagerly anticipated (by me) new production from Theatre Ad Infinitum. 

Finally, I have tickets for the James Plays by Rona Munro with the NTS in the International Festival. Which I hope will be as good as they should be. There's some pretty special looking dance on too, though I rashly haven't booked any of that.

All in all, it's fluttery exciting. I shall take a brief holiday to prepare myself for the onslaught. And then August, here we come.