It's the season for .......The Edinburgh Festivals

Edinburgh has started to buzz with the jazz festival starting this weekend and the Fringe,official festival and the book festivals following on.

Earlier this week I started thinking about seasons. The season for herring and Ayrshire potatoes is July and they make a lovely yet simple meal. For dessert you could have either strawberries or raspberries as June/July is also the time for a celebration of Scottish berries in places like Blairgowrie. In February and March, if you grow rhubarb, it's the time for the fresh pink shoots which are sweetest.

Just to prove this is not all about food, May is the season for long light nights,June for Gala Days and you could go on and on - a bit like the Edinburgh festivals!

Perhaps today we have lost the sense of seasons. In supermarkets we get everything all the year round, there are now Festivals in lots of towns and villages. Yet there is something very special and 'tasty' about a fruit or food in season. A friend told me about the excitement of waiting for the arrival of the tomato season in Cuba and the sheer joy of that first taste of a tomato.

I can recall my first real taste of the Edinburgh Festival in 1980 when I came to live here and the racing about from show to show. Its a different experience now but that first taste of something in season is special and to be savoured. Appreciating something for the very first time or tasting 'as if' for the very first time is to be relished. Enjoy!

Here is a question for you. 'Tell me about a time when you tasted something for the very first time, what was it, where was it and what did you enjoy?