Ok, I know I don’t yet own a new digital camera. Once again, I snapped some quick pics using my phone as I walked along Princes Street Gardens last night. It’s been like this now for a few years and I have to say, me likey. There is obviously the fairground element with the Big Wheel and the Ice Rink being the main draw for folks. For me however, the main attraction was wandering around the couple of dozen little German wooden huts used as wee shoppies. We weren’t able to get down to the Ice Rink for a browse because the weather was fairly bad and it was getting on a bit in any case. So I indulged in a spot of retail therapy and treated myself to a new pair of footwear. It made me realise that its quite some time since I was last up Edinburgh for any reason at all. Strange that for a lot of my working life I was in the city most days, but now the job I’m in, I hardly have an opportunity to see it. I enjoyed a rare moment of pleasant calm and the thought of moving back into the city has crossed my mind more than once in recent weeks…

In many ways, the Gardens last night reminded me of when I was in Norway a few years back. Paul, I’m sure, will have seen similar things in Sweden. A Norwegian Christmas is quite different to ours. They don’t go for turkey so much and they have a very different looking Father Christmas. Maybe I’ll talk about that more another time. Whilst the memory is still fresh, there were similar huts to these also in the Old Square in Prague when I was there last month. It was where Keith bought his silly Russian hat thing (with floppy ear bits).