Fiona Duff: The things students get up to now

But my goodness, so many other people had had the same idea. I mean the place was literally heaving with bodies. If Edinburgh has a population of about half a million, then about half of them must have been there.

I was on my way to see a friend’s daughter sing carols in St Giles’ Cathedral with the Edinburgh University choir.

If you wanted to know where the other half of Edinburgh folk were it was probably in this kirk. We arrived in what we had thought was good time to find a queue snaking round the corner onto George IV Bridge. Well before we got near the doors they were slammed shut and two soldiers stood outside, like the scariest bouncers ever encountered.

Obviously this had been foreseen by the organisers who had put two large screens outside. However, it was a tad chilly so after one carol we hotfooted it back to the warmth of a radiator in my home.

Where on earth do all these people come from? And indeed why are so many students going to a carol service?

In my day, no self-respecting student would be doing that on a Sunday evening. Mind you, if I told you what most of us were up to I might get a knock on the door from the Old Bill.

Or worse still young Bill (my son) might read it and decide to excommunicate himself from his mother.

However, I suppose it’s all money in the coffers for local businesses and the council. With any luck they might use some of the dosh to fill in the potholes that are appearing around the roads of Edinburgh as frequently as plukes on a teenage boy’s face.

So I’m off to make a Christmas wreath – some of whatever is going on in Princes Street gardens must have rubbed off on me.