The holiday season slows everything down, and it’s mostly a good thing, with or without family, the hours seem to crawl.
Time is like bad weather, it only matters when there’s nothing you can do about it.

The rain makes introspection easy, and if you have proper gear, and lashings of coffee and scones waiting for you, then there’s nothing better, after reaching the flood in the road,

than taking your whisky into its natural environment, softening the dram with rain and accentuating the peat with some wet dog on the nose.

Drinking scotch in lush green landscapes reminds me of the scene in the BBC’s production of Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy, where George Smiley takes a bottle to Connie Sachs amid a gigantic rainstorm to “go over some very old ground.”

But beware of too much holiday idleness. You only have a limited amount of time farting around before the chicken claw mafia comes and tells you enough is enough.