Parks and Spires: Prague, Edinburgh and Beyond. New paintings by Carolyn Burchell, focusing on landscape. 11am-5pm Tuesday to Saturday, McNaughton’s Bookshop and Gallery, 3a & 4a Haddington Place. Ends 30th July 2015.
Benji The Play Talk Read Bus is in Drylaw today! Free songs, stories and play sessions for young children, their parents and carers. 10am-1pm and 2-4pm, Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre, 67 Groathill Loan.
CONTACT: Young Photographers Group Exhibition. CONTACT is an eight-week photography club for young people aged 16-19; over the duration of the course, the group has learned new skills and worked towards the development of this exhibition. Special celebration 4.30-5pm today; exhibition open 11am-6pm today and on Wednesday 24th June, Stills, 23 Cockburn Street.
Craigmillar Community Arts Marie Curie Tea: a vintage tea party with a chance to browse craft and bric a brac stalls. All proceeds will go to Marie Curie Cancer Care. 11am-2pm, The Jewel Miners’ Club, 56 Duddingston Park South. £2 per person, which includes all refreshments – no booking required, just pay on the door.
Breastfeeding Awareness Week: NHS Lothian’s Infant Feeding Team will answer any questions you may have – plus free gifts and fun goodies for the children! 11am-12.30pm (after Rhymetime), Craigmillar Library, 101 Niddrie Mains Road. Also 10.30am-12 noon at Leith Library on Wednesday 24th and 10.30am-12 noon at Muirhouse Library on Friday 26th June 2015.
Rocks and Rivers: Masterpieces of Landscape Painting from the Lunde Collection. Tico Seifert, SNG Senior Curator Early Netherlandish, Dutch and Flemish Art, will celebrate the long-term loan of thirteen works from the distinguished private collection of Asbjorn Lunde, New York; a series of extraordinary landscape paintings by Norwegian and Swiss artists such as Johan Christian Dahl, Alexandre Calame and Thomas Fearnley will be seen in Scotland for the first time. This lecture will introduce the artists and paintings, to highlight this important but little known chapter in 19th century landscape painting. 12.45-1.30pm, Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, Scottish National Gallery, The Mound. Free and unticketed.
eBook Surgery: find out about eBooks, emagazines and audiobooks. 10.30am-12.30pm (drop-in), Newington Library, Fountainhall Road. Also at same times on Tuesday 30th June.
Edinburgh International Film Festival continues today! For details of all films and other events see the programme here or pick up a paper copy at EIFF venues and many other locations throughout the city. Tickets are available in person from the Filmhouse, Lothian Road, Cineworld, Fountain Park, Odeon, Lothian Road and the Festival Theatre, by calling 0131 623 8030 or online here. Today’s highlights include The First Film, the story of Louis Aime Augustine Le Prince’s pioneering work in film projection – and his sudden and still unexplained disappearance in 1890, and Maggie, ‘a zombie film with an art-house sensibility’ in which Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a Midwest farmer who is determined to bring his daughter home after she is infected by cannibalistic zombies, ‘an engrossing, engaging and genuinely moving film’. Plus a special evening of videos by artist Stephen Sutcliffe, who creates moving image collages through a careful and intuitive editing process; the evening is presented by Talbot Rice Gallery in association with LUX, and will be accompanied by the artist in conversation.
Wester Hailes Community Connections: a festival celebrating community life, past, present and future. Today: Big Walk: Paint It Back – featuring The Edinburgh Sketcher! A guided walk with a local historian, highlighting past, present and future sites key to Wester Hailes; The Edinburgh Sketcher will draw selected locations. 12 noon-3pm, meet at the Totem Pole, Westside Waterfront, Wester Hailes. For more information about this or any other event in the Community Connections Festival, please call Sarah Walker on 0131 458 3267 or email sarah@whalearts.co.uk.
Scottish Episcopal Church Diocesan Office Open Day: come and meet the staff and enjoy some tea and cake to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care. 11am-3pm, Diocesan Office, 21a Grosvenor Crescent.
Blackwell’s Edinburgh Presents Tessa Ransford: A Good Cause. The poet, translator, literary editor and founder of the Scottish Poetry Library launches her new selection of previously uncollected poems. 6.30-8pm, Blackwell’s, South Bridge. Free tickets are available from the shop’s front desk, by calling 0131 622 8218, by emailing events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk or via eventbrite here.
Summer Colour: new paintings by Jonathan Meuli, glasswork by Stuart Ackroyd, ceramics by Rupert Merton, paintings by Alan McPherson and jewellery by Cecile Gilbert. 10.30am-5.30pm, Tuesday to Saturday, closed Sundays and Mondays, Gallery Ten, Stafford Street. Ends 27th July 2015.
Leith Folk Club: Alastair McDonald. The club welcomes one of Scotland’s most loved, most talented and most versatile showbiz personalities who often humbly describes himself as ‘a banjo player’. With support Bare. 7.30pm, Victoria Park House Hotel, 221 Ferry Road. Tickets cost £9 on the door (sta), in advance by texting 07502 024 852 or online here.
Hare: the unreliable final confession of William Hare regarding his acquaintance with William Burke, with interruptions and contradictions by Mrs Margaret Hare. Edinburgh was scandalised when murderer William Hare was released after turning King’s evidence and sending his partner, William Burke, to the gallows; in this dramatic telling, Hare and his wife look back and reluctantly recount, in sordid detail, their memories of the year 1828 and what became known as The Westport Murders. Written and performed by John and Noreen Hamilton of Heritage Stories. For over 16s only. 7.30pm, Netherbow Theatre, Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street. Tickets cost £8/£6 and may be purchased from the Box Office by calling 0131 556 9579 or online here.
