Notes from the North - 2
Despite the soaring cost of energy, households across the UK have been lighting up the winter darkness. Christmas is coming. Trees have been bought and decorated. Windows are shining with stars, candles, wreaths and strings of light. Ditto hedges, front doors and fences. In our street there are no Santas, snowmen or reindeers but there is a large stuffed dog a few doors along, chained to a bench in the front garden. The city has installed its giant Norway spruce on the Mound and below it, in very large sparkly capitals, EDINBURGH, perhaps with the televised New Year fireworks in mind. At the Scott Monument there is a frantic Christmas market – food, drink, fairground rides and stalls selling over-priced Christmassy baubles. On the other side of Princes Street there’s a more ‘up-market’ spectacle. You have to pay for entry to Christmas at the Botanics and you go on foot through swarms of laser fireflies, past glades of ghostly trees and along tunnels of wh...