Apparently when you laugh it causes physical changes in your body including increasing your intake of oxygen and  increasing the feel good hormones in your brain so you feel more relaxed and happy.  Read more here.

The reason I am mentioning this is because the Edinburgh Summer Festivals are about to begin – and there is so much to see and do.  Culture really is food for the soul and everyone can find some fun at the fringe! There are 12 major festivals that take place in Scotland’s historic capital city each year and attract international artists and visitors worldwide.  This year is no exception.

There is the Edinburgh Art Festival (2 August-2 September) – www.edinburghartfstival.com. This takes place across more than 30 of the city’s museums and galleries. In addition to over 45 major exhibitions, this year there is the Festival Promenade, which invites visitors to participate by taking them across the city.

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (3-27 August) www.edfringe.com is the largest arts festival in the world – and much of it is free. Every year thousands of performers take to the stages across the city to present shows for every taste. From big names in the world of entertainment to emerging artists looking to build their careers, the festival caters for everyone and includes theatre, comedy, cabaret, dance, theatre, musicals, operas, music, exhibitions and events.

At the London media launch we are priviledged to meet Tricity Vogue a very witty and clever lady who writes her own poetry and rhymes to go with her ukulele music.  She is such a talented person and her satirical poems make the whole room light up and grin from ear to ear. We specially loved the one about a friend’s cat!

Tricity is at the fringe – so do go and see her.  She has two things going on – a ukulele workshop where you can learn to play(Rae Macintosh’s Music Room) and also her cabaret at The Counting House – see the fringe website for times and tickets.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival (9 August – 2 September) – www.edbookfest.co.uk was where an unknown JK Rowling first read from her book.

We were treated to novelist Benjamin Wood (pictured above) reading  from his debut book, The Bellweather Revivals,  described by critics as a 21st century Brideshead.

The novel follows Oscar Lowe, a bright young nursing home assistant in Cambridge. He falls in love with a medical student at King’s College, Iris Bellwether, after he is drawn into an evensong service at the chapel by the ethereal sound of an organ. Soon, he becomes embroiled in the machinations of Iris’s older brother, Eden, who is a rather self-confident but troubled musical prodigy. Eden believes he can adapt the theories of a forgotten Baroque composer for healing purposes, and he lures Oscar into a series of experiments to prove his claims. 

The novel is a love story at heart — the graduating romance between Oscar and Iris is very much at the foreground. It adopts a different viewpoint from most campus-set novels, in that Oscar isn’t a student at the university but an outsider looking in on a world of scholarship and privilege. 

With Eden’s musical claims at the centre of the plot, the novel explores the partition between genius and madness, touching on wider themes along the way, such as the conflict between science and faith.
You can also see Benjamin at the festival click here http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/zoe-strachan-benjamin-wood