Im writing this Edinburgh blog from London partly because I've spent most of the festival here and partly because when I was in Scotland it seemed like a circular waste of time to be writing about what I was doing in Scotland. So this is my retrospective review of what I did a couple of weeks ago:

A week of the festival had already passed when I drove hurriedly up the centre of the British Isles to Edinburgh, anxious to see what I was missing after having my appetite almost entirely devastated by the BBC whose reports of 'The Fringe' (even the way the aunt-like presenters say 'The Fringe' make it seem like something I'd never want to be involved in) are always cringingly full of jaunty shots of tall clowns, irrationally optimistic student musical stars and idiots.

Everyone talks about the fringe being a bubble, but it wasn't till I was outside of the bubble that I could see what a small but bouncy bubble it really is. For while the outside world sees only these facile images of street-performers and recently ex-children, the performers inside are similarly unaware of what's actually going on in the world. When I arrived most people had no idea about the foiled terrorist threat that everyone else in the UK was sick of hearing about the day before. The only news people in the Pleasance courtyard were excited about was that someone had got five stars while someone else had got one.

And within a Piemaker bacon and cheese rollover and a can of irn-bru I was happily esconced in this happier bubble.

I saw fifteen shows in a week, more than I had seen in all my previous five visits as a performer combined. I enjoyed every one but also looked at my watch at some stage during every one. I rarely laughed. This is one of the problems with being a comedian. I hardly ever laugh at comedy any more. Except when it goes wrong. Or when I can spot something that the audience is not meant to spot. So most of the few laughs I did do occurred when nobody else was doing them.

I saw more of my comedy friends than I ever usually do. And when I was with them I laughed a lot. I was relaxed, unusually comfortable in social situations and probably annoyingly smug about not being under the dark clouds of reviews, awards and inevitable financial ruin.

These are some of the things I did that I wouldn't normally do at the festival: Woke up before 11am. Had a beer in the afternoon. Gawped at the Ron Mueck exhibition. Avoided reviews. Accepted Flyers. On my third day I took a friend to Lindisfarne - a holy island halfway between Edinburgh and Newcastle. We saw saw my first eider ducks and sandwich terns of the year. I'm doing a lot of birdwatching at the moment. I never normally leave the city during the festival.

But it was all over far too quickly and though the leisurely drive back down the right hand side of the Isles was just as agreeable as on the way up (and included a trip to an ancient second-hand book shop in Alnwick whose computers were both the only ones in the town with internet access and the only ones I've ever seen whose screens were muddy), I couldn't rid this unrelenting feeling that I was leaving something behind unfinished. The party was just hotting up but I had to go home. Getting out of the bubble is not nearly as nice as getting in.

Back in London I've spent the past few days living as if nothing is going on up there; occasionally glancing at the internet to check everyone's ok, flicking through the papers from time to time to see if anyone's got a particularly good or bad review, sporadically getting excited by the thought that the eddies are soon to be announced (no it doesn't even look right in print - perriers - it will always be perriers - it's like hoovers - you don't do the dysoning - you dont get nominated for an eddy).

But I know I'm missing out. I had a lovely time as a punter at this year's festival. But I can't wait to have a much worse time as a performer next year.