Sunday, January 17

We had another deliberately late start, only today I looked at the weather and abandoned the idea of a breakfast walk.

I spent an hour cleaning the sofa which, we noticed, was like a museum of cat fur. There was enough hair to make a new coat for the cat.

Now we are all getting ready to go out. I am looking into Naa’s room where the outside is considerably more visible than the inside. The snow is coming down very slowly without much enthusiasm. There is just enough to keep the ground looking fresh.

We will end up in Itis, where I will look to see if any of the likely shops sell replacement blades for my shaver. They don’t, so I resign myself to shopping on E-Bay.

We then go to Prisma to buy Naa winter boots. This weekend is the first time that all the big shops have their new, liberalised opening hours. Prisma used to open at 8:00 and close at 21:00 during the week; open at 8:00 and close at 18:00 on Saturdays; and open from 12:00 to 18:00 on Sundays. Tonight it will be pen till 23:00.

In fact its new opening hours are 7:00 till 23:00 everyday except Sunday when it will open from 10:00 to 23:00. Some shops have gone the whole way and will now be opening 24 hours a day.

It remains to be seen whether there will actually be enough business to sustain this.