I saw the new West Church for the first time during the Watchnight service on Christmas Eve - what they've done is to convert the bottom floor into one of Inverurie's three thousand cafes, put a floor up where the balcony used to be and make that the church instead. As soon as you walk in you're aware that you're in a sort of Church 2.0, with plasma screens on the four corner pillars upon which the words to the hymns and the order of service are Powerpointed up to you rather than the more traditional paper handouts.

Two hymns in, my anticipation of Christmas was already waning, because everything that Eddie Izzard says about it is true and there is really no sound on Earth like what church singers can do to songs that are meant to convey joy and happiness. After half of the ten-minute-long drone of The First Nowell you discover that another advantage to replacing paper with screens is that they deny you the escape of repeatedly walloping yourself on the head with a nearby Bible. Fortunately things were brightened up after that with the Calypso Carol assisted by a Casio keyboard, after which we were shown a slideshow about Israel and Palestine while the American version of "Away in a Manger" was crooned to us by one of those singers who are chosen based on their ability to wobble notes out over a period of days. We had to sing "Silent Night" twice because the service ran short, and my already straining voice was punctuated with hiccups at the worst possible moment.

This week's gone very quickly and we haven't really done much, but I did get to see a couple of people that I hadn't in years - people from Inverurie will recognize the name of the legend of Dr Atkinson, who is still teaching. We should go to Tesco to load up on supplies before we leave - we now also have a giant shopping centre at the edge of the town with a LIDL, Halfords and Homebase. Whitney bought another pair of shoes bringing her total to 504, and we've already made sure to have Indian food and fish and chips while we're here. I think that's just about all that we had on our list.