WELL that’s Christmas gone for another year and we’re in the middle of the weirdest week of the year.

It’s like a half-time interval in a pantomime or sports event extended hugely to cover four days. It’s a time to relax, regroup and then limber up for the next big performance – New Year’s Eve.

If like my wife and myself you’ve always had to work for most of the in-between period it is very strange.

There’ll be virtually no-one about as you travel into work before 8am except the odd individual trying to look sober as he attempts to co-ordinate arms and legs and walk himself home from a marathon drink-in.

By lunch time the town centre has a few families wandering rather aimlessly around.

In supermarkets though significant numbers of people are returning to buy food after clearing the shelves less than a week earlier.

How is it we manage to consume so much more than usual in such a short time?

In the world of retailing planning is already under way for next year’s festive season.

A week ago it was revealed that talks are taking place between the friends of the Cathedral and their counterparts in the North German city of Braunschweig or Brunswick to try to bring the equivalent of their Christmas market to the town for December, 2012.

You’ve only got to look at how the same thing in Manchester has mushroomed in the past few years to realise what a great boost for business such a venture would be.

Before our established traders start moaning about competition too it’s worth mentioning that what used to be called ‘German’ markets are now truly international.

They bring in the shoppers because so much variety is on offer and in Blackburn that would inevitably include local shops and our own market if the festive set-up was sited, for example, in Church Street.

A couple of months ago I went to what was described as a ‘continental market’ in York.

With German sausage sellers alongside Mexican takeways, people cooking Paella and others selling tasty Thai cuisine the smells were fantastic but at least three different continents were represented before you began looking at the non-food stalls.

Happy New Year!