So, I said that I would tell you a few stories about my experiences at the Edinburgh Fringe.

I realised that I was in Edinburgh on my second day at the Festival. I'd taken my kids along to see "Sketchy!" which is one of the two shows that we were producing this year. It was penned by The Flame Haired Writing Genius, and is a snappy little sketch show for young kids.

I was sitting towards the back of the theatre behind a family of typical Fringe goers - Upper Middle Class parents dragging their slightly precocious children along to the theatre because it an improving experience. Even though I love the theatre, I do realise that any right-thinking child would much prefer to be chasing a sibling with a jobby on a stick.

At any event, there's one point in the show when one of the characters throws a bundle of tea bags into the audience (yes - you are right - there IS a certain magic in the theatre). One of the teabags landed in the lap of the precocious eight year old girl in front of me. She picked it up gingerly, gazed at it for a moment and then said with an air of faint incedulity: "Mummy - this isn't Earl Grey."

You wouldn't get that in Glasgow.

As I alluded to in the last entry, my life is on the verge of collapse on many fronts following the Fringe. Having a hobby is a good thing, but a hobby that borders on the obsessional has its downside. If you spend eight hours a day thinking about lighting plots and ticket sales and the correct way to say the word "Delusional" in a Pacific North West accent, it does not leave much room for DIY projects.

My house appears to be on the verge of total collapse. In fact, I'm not even sure about that, because most of my house now resembles the ward of a mental institution near Seattle, festooned as it is by gurney beds, faux ECT machines and nurses uniforms.

However, regular readers will not be surprised to learn that I HAVE A CUNNING PLAN!!!

And here it is. Henceforth, until the end of the project, this will be The Blog of 100 Small But Tangeible Imptovements (B100STI). Check in regularly to see how by tiny increments I improve my life from the sad and dishevelled existence that I lead today, to the brighter new tomorrow where I shall leap across the meadow of life like a stag in his prime.

I have missed you little blog, but I have been busy directing my little show. Fear not though, for now my venture to the Fringe is over, and I have returned an older man if not any wiser. So, now I shall catch up - and not only with you little blog, but also with all of the little things that I have been neglecting. You know - like DIY projects, paying bills and the children.

Doing shows is a rather peculiar hobby when it comes right down to it. It involves about 8 weeks of intensive effort, where you can't really think much about anything else. So you run up overdrafts, neglect creditors and allow dust to settle an inch deep on the carpet. And at the end of the 8 weeks you spend a week putting a little show on in a sweaty hall in Edinburgh. By that time all of the team - actors and crew - are either best friends with one another, or hate the sight of each other.

But it's worth it. It really is. Just to feel the life in your veins for a week, and to enter that little universe where time seems to flow differently.

I'll tell you few stories over the next week or two.

I have spent a couple of days in bed with a tummy bug which I suspect that my first born has passed on to me. It is pretty rare for me to be off my work, so it has been an odd experience to be on the sick.

It was differesnt when I was a kid. I was off school a lot as a result of having a pair of tonsils that expanded to the size of a modestly proportioned semi-detached house whenever I engaged in any physical exercise. As a result I suspect that most of my teachers thought I was the child of some travelling folk, as I generally only came to school for a couple of days during Lamaas Fair.

Incidentally, my tonsils are partially responsible for my brief conversion to Born Again Christianity, which is a story I will share with you shortly. (That was a teaser folks - designed to keep you coming back for more. I bet you can hardly wait).

Anyway, being laid up in bed over the past couple of days is oddly comforting and rather nostalgic. The feeling of periodically shivering and overheating; the odd security of the duvet; the reassuring cycle of Radio 4 programmes; and the empty bottle of lucozade beside the bed - it all makes me feel like I am back at my parents' house. If I close my eyes, I can almost hear mum shouting up the stairs asking if I want some buttery toast. It is never all bad when you are off school with minor ailments. I must be off now - Gardener's Question Time is starting.

My Edinburgh Fringe Productions are