How do you know that Christmas is coming in Manorhamilton? Well, extra shelves going up in the shops is a give-away, and trademark tins of USA and Chocolate Kimberly signal the approach of the season of good-will more vividly than anything else.

The two chemist shops have become a Pandora's box, and the new additions to stock are driving my child insane. The two chemists are actually owned by the same person, who has one premises on Upper Main Street, and one on Lower Main Street. The Upper Main Street shop looks more modern, and the only way you would know they are the one operation is that if you ask for something in one and they don't have it, a member of staff will go down the road to the other and get if for you.

Now that's the kind of service you just wouldn't get in Dublin. There is also something about the scale of the chemist shops which makes things more exciting. Because the shops are reasonably small, everything is crowded in, which increases the sense of excitement and nostalgia. Bath salts, sachets of pot pourri, ornaments and jewellery rub shoulders with Calpol, Solpadeine and Vicks. There is so much in stock, you just know there's a bargain in there somewhere, and you could buy something that people definitely won't get in Dublin.

I've already spotted a lovely fleece shoulder-bag in day-glo pink with a big green apple on the front which I think Hannah would like, and I know that Leo will go berserk for the Bart Simpson, bubble bath look-alike. These are chemist shops like they used to be, and a far cry from somewhere like Boots in Liffey Valley where you can get anything you want, but because the place is so enormous, you forget what you wanted in the first place. The last time I visited there I couldn't help thinking you could fit the whole of Manorhamilton into Boots alone, never mind the fact that the city cinemas equal the size of your average rural town.

The chemists are not the only places gearing up, there's The Irish Gift Shop and Mrs Eager's place up the street, both beginning to bustle with pre-Christmas activity. You can get anything from a comic to a cap-gun in The Irish Gift Shop, while Mrs Eager is capturing the market in pottery, glass and figurines (as well as papers, cards and sweets). In a small place, it's difficult for each shop to carve out an identity of its own, but they do it, which means as a consumer you know exactly where to go, to get just what you want.

I saw a man leave Mrs Eager's recently carrying the Financial Times, its signature pinkish colour like a beacon going down the street. All I know is that the man was driving a car with a Donegal registration plate. The fact that I noticed this and was going to follow him says a lot more about me than it does about the reading habits of people here. I did, however, dampen my overwhelming urge to go back and ask Mrs Eager: "Who's your man with the DL reg?"

The only other details I've picked up about newspaper reading in Manorhamilton, is that The Irish Times is sold out by noon, every second Thursday when this column appears. Lest anybody is worried that this might give me a big head, I should say the reaction is often less than congratulatory.

"Here comes trouble," I heard one woman say to another when shopping in Spar the other day. Even my bank manager was a little sceptical when I suggested that the column would ultimately be good for the town.

"Don't give me that," he said. "Don't be trying to convince me that you are working hard on behalf of the people of Manorhamilton."

"Yeah, but they won't send a lynching party out, will they?" I asked feeling slightly ridiculous.

"Not yet anyway," he replied rather cryptically.

So this week I'm including a dig at the big smoke which will surely win me some brownie points? Leo had his birthday party with 10 seven-year-olds in attendance. Tony and I decided that a kiddie quiz might be just the thing to keep them entertained. Apart from one child who refused to participate on the grounds that he didn't like "tests" the rest took part enthusiastically.

"What is the biggest city in Ireland?" drew a major blank from all children present, until one child breathlessly saved the day by jumping up and screaming "I know, I know".

All nine other heads turned in her direction. "Florida" she announced with pride. And you thought Dublin was the epicentre of the universe - not here it's not, not by a long shot.