Every summer, Edinburgh residents can be heard bemoaning the number of visitors in the city centre. “It can’t get any busier!” has become an annual refrain, as reliable as the swallows’ return, uttered as locals queue fruitlessly for a bus or circle for an hour in search – the fools – of a parking space.

Earlier this week, a family from Houston, Texas, expressed astonishment at how mobbed the city was. Also, at how much there is to see for such a small place. My first instinct was to look modest and bat away the compliment – “I’m sure Houston is fascinating too” - but why should I? Edinburgh is exceptional, and there is no point denying it.

Instead, I told them they’d seen nothing yet. Within a few days, as the festivals crank into gear, the centre, and the Royal Mile especially, will be jam-packed, people squeezed together as tightly as jigsaw pieces.

There will be throngs of street performers, gaggles of festival- and fringe-goers soaking up the atmosphere, and the strains of bagpipes and drums from the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo on the castle esplanade, whose closing fireworks light up the sky every night.

Having lost my tolerance of crowds and my patience with jostlers and dawdlers, I find Edinburgh in August a little trying. It’ll be even worse this year if the bin strikes go ahead and we have to dodge stinking overflows and sidestep scavenging seagulls as well as the madding hordes.

Get ready for a lot of this kind of thing (Image: Colin Hattersley)

That cavil apart, Edinburgh is booming, and set to become even more buoyant. News that the old Edinburgh Royal High School is........

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