Alpacas in the Snow

We woke up this morning wondering where the snow was. Almost at once it fell out of the sky, quite a lot of it really and sob, sob, it is now melting fast, no snowball fights today. The alpacas have turned into multis with snow covered backs. The big grey clouds have moved on and we have blue sky and sun. In Derbyshire we used to have serious snow with a foot or more falling in a day. Next to our garden was the best tobogganing field in Chapel-en-le-Frith where you could hurtle down towards a stone wall hopefully stopping in time. One winter our lane turned into an ice rink and we went shopping on a sledge. It was Joshua’s birthday and we found a very large ride-on Spot the Dog that he loved in one of the village shops that come home tied to the sledge.

I was watching a programme about volcanoes the other day and remembered going up Etna when heavily pregnant. We drove to the crater in a landrover through ten foot high walls of snow. I have only ever been snowed in once and that was at Laurel Farm in Aller in Somerset. We were out at lunch and came back as the storm was starting. We had to carry the two boys as the trees were being blown horizontal. The power was off for a week but we had wood and an Aga that burnt coke and the neighbours had to use our oven. It was fun.

I have to tell you about Chas and the cat. The cat, a tricoloured female who turned up here starving several years ago, has taken to climbing up Chas’s back and sitting on his shoulders when he is working on the computer. His living scarf peers round his head -is she reading the emails? And only decamps when he starts walking around the office. I will have to take a photograph.