Sledging

No talk about wildlife today, we joined the rest of the human race and went sledging. Although as we did it at 8 o'clock before taking Oliver to nursery, most of the human race were still at home.

 As you can see we had our hill and the other family (those specks in the distance on the photo) had theirs.
It felt great, the snow was deep and crisp and even, as they say, and despite age and weight (both numbers higher than I'd like), I felt like an 8 year old again. The photo is pretty blue because as well as it being still quite early, it was snowing steadily at the time.

Here is a rare photo of me for the blog taken by Rosie.
I like snow, it seems a necessary part of the seasons, that it should be cold in January and having a week or so of snow disruption breaks the monotony of winter. People like the drama of stocking up on soups and hot drinks and discussing whether they will be able to make it into work tomorrow. It takes our minds of the fact that Christmas is over, we ate too much and spent too much and it is still a long time until spring. It brings the children out to play that would otherwise be huddled in front of televisions and computers and brings an outbreak of neighbourliness in offers to clear drives or fetch shopping.
By the time this cold spell is over, January will almost be over too and then we can start looking for the early signs of spring with a clear conscience knowing that we have had a proper winter and that we are safe from all the things that a mild winter brings -growth in rat population, unchecked slugs and snails and mosquitoes and anything else the doom merchants want to revel in.