The outside stalls at the St. Lawrence market have been taken over by assorted Yuletide frippery. I have no idea who buys half a dozen birch logs crudely nailed together to form some crude approximation to a reindeer but clearly there is a market for them. So too for umpteen different kinds of pine cone and assorted other tree giblets. It's a strange sight. It is though proof that the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness has breathed its last. The friendly bushel baskets of apples and pears have given way to the dread harbingers of winter.