The Pagans and Wiccans and those who just like the earth-linked traditions have celebrated the Winter Solstice (shortest day, hooray, all up from here) and the Jews have begun Hanukkah, and the rest of us (worshippers of Mammon?) are battling our way round the shops trying hard to find the Ho! Ho! factor. I thought the High Street would fulfill my every need and subsidised by on line shopping it did with no battling, but there is still food to be bought and Tesco was like one of those inner rings of Dante's Inferno this morning. I can't understand why as the shops are hardly closing for the holidays at all. It has always been understood that the real holiday is Hogmany and two days are (or were) allowed to recover from hang-over from that so that when I first came to live in Scotland I was slightly bemused at the absence of panic buying for Christmas, then taken aback by how long it took the food shops to open again after New Year. there was no supermarket in town then. It seems that enough incomers from the South have crept up bringing with them their bad ways.

Happily the buying people have included my shop in their itinerary and, although the takings are way down on last year because my stock is so depleted, I'm still getting a bit to spend on the Christmas Day stocking fillers and some alcohol.

Everyone seems to be catching the Puritan fear of intoxicating liquor. I thought it left with the Mayflower and we were therefore shot of it but there's a disturbing element creeping back. It's true the Scottish tendency for melancholia and alcoholism is a problem - worst on the islands and the isolated places of the West Coast where there's nothing much to do through the long winter nights. The Scandinavians have the same propensity for depression and inebriation. Still I was slightly shocked by the reaction of two different doctors to friends of mine who turned up for their appointments after, in one case a glass of red with lunch, and in the other a tankard of real ale. Both where told to come back next week when they hadn't been drinking!