SNOW

After an unusually quiet night I awoke to find that the sky was that shade of coppery grey which heralds the fall of snow, but it was almost lunch time before the first flakes began to fall. Slowly at first and mixed with rain but soon this gave way to large flakes as big as feathers which drifted about the garden, our cats were entranced.

Within half an hour the lawn was white over and the snow had changed in character from soft and fluffy to smaller flakes which fell so thickly that the hills around became invisible and the trees at the end of the garden obscured by a curtain of white.

How do I love snow, let me count the ways. I love it for its beauty and it's purity, I love it for the soft sibilant sound it makes as it drifts across the glass window panes. I love the way it hides the sad sear hedgerows, transforming them into icy castles and strange animals!

I love the loveliness it lends to the bare trees, clothing them as for a winter festival, I love the quality of light which snowfall brings, lifting the gloom of day and at night, filling the moon lit garden with a million sparkling stars.

Do you get my drift....pardon the pun!

Filled with excitement and enthusiasm the youngest of our cats,Moth bounded through the newly opened cat flap and on to the snowy garden, the older and more experienced cat twiggy contented herself with staring out of the window at the drifting snow occasionally patting the window pane when ever a flake stuck to the glass.

Moth was back in the warm kitchen before you could count to ten appalled by the cold wet stuff she spent almost an hour washing her pretty little paws and drying her fur before a roaring fire, while a rather smug Twiggy viewed the proceedings with a laconic air.

I found and excuse to go to the shop, got out the buggy and sallied forth in to the snowy lane. I have never lost the sense of wonder that falling snow engenders, the strange quietness and the feel of the soft flakes brushing my face added to the magic of the moment and I revelled unashamedly in the thickening cover of snow rapidly building up along the lane.

The builder arrived during the afternoon to make his final measurements prior to commencing the work on the flues, this act symbolises the triumph of a determined little old lady over the might of a scheming,chiselling, shilly~ shallying Estate Agent.....HOORAH!!

That will teach them to acquire , inflated estimates in order to cream off a slice for themselves. I simply cut them out of the loop , dealt directly with the owner, acquired my own estimates and in doing so cut the cost of the work by more than half!

I somehow think that the owner will be dispensing with the services of this shady outfit in the near future. Sic ad omnes inimici nostri .