It snowed … at first just a little bit … the promise (or threat depending how you look at it) of snowmagedon never happened … but then, two days ago, slowly gently the garden and the city turned white. White and so so beautiful … and this time for once in England not just soggy flakey slushy snow but proper powder that compacts thick and firm and white and stays on even the most slender branches. It’s still here and just as thick … now slippery and perilous under foot but just as beautiful on the trees, and my car still looks like an igloo on wheels.
wonderful snowy walk
Hope has missed most of it, she’s been for a few walks but has been asleep for them, I pondered buying a small plastic sledge thing and going to find a gentle slope but to be honest with my knees it heralds disaster so I’ll wait til she’s old enough to appreciate it before I totally cripple myself amusing her. In the meantime I’ve let her have a ride on the little wooden trike that was mine when I was a child … she loved moving back and forth on it but as she still isn’t crawling or walking she wasn’t sure of her dismount … that ended in a giggling girl under the little upturned trike and her reaching to get back on … only under supervision!!
gloves on
The theme of Hope’s few snowy walks (before she falls asleep) has been gloves, her pulling them off, or rather tearing them off and me picking them up, being stopped by strangers waving them at me and then battling to put them back on to her again … she hates them and now thinks glove removal and replacement is a game … so … I let her be gloveless but then two things happen, she gets cold hands and gets cross about it and also people look at me in a very disapproving way and I find myself walking along muttering, “she keeps pulling her gloves off” … her Godmother delighted in the fact that she managed to pull them so far up Hope’s arms that they stayed on but I think that was more amazement on Hope’s part and the fact that she fell asleep before she thought to hoik them off again!!
The flip side of the loveliness of the snow is the effect it is having on the heating (mother’s heating on full blast all the time so house so so hot) and the fear it seems to engender in older people … slipping, getting stuck in a broken down car, getting a chill and so on … great to look out at but far too hazardous to go out in. A small reminder there to look in on neighbouring folk who might be less able, willing or keen to get out to the shops …
out of church and into the blizzard
having said that we had a Songs of Praise type service on Sunday evening before most of the white stuff arrived, but even so it was cold, slippery and very snowy … and so many people came, it was lovely … all the local churches contributed and a person from each church chose a hymn and said why it was special. I was the person from our church and I chose Thine Be the Glory which the service ended with and having waffled my way through my little speech I ended by saying lets all sing it at the tops of our voices … we did and it was fantastic … I’m still humming it now and Hope, when she hears it, starts wiggling and dancing … I love that I have a daughter that dances to AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, I’m a Dingle Dangle Scarecrow, Jools Holland and my favorite hymn. We left the church to find a blizzard outside and much thicker snow, but I think everybody was warmed from inside.
As far as the snow goes and the cold I’m never quite sure if I’m putting Hope in too many clothes or not enough clothes! She has a mountain of knitware (thanks to the generosity of all the old ladies at church and various friend’s mothers in law and a wonderful knitting crochet queen I know from Cumbria) … and she has been given a glorious pink furry thing which I call her worm, I’m not sure why I call it that but I do, it has ears on it as well and makes her look like a rather fabulously absurd pink honey monster … she hates it and objects vehemently when I zip her up, but it is all purpose and covers her feet so saves the kicking off of shoes. So, when we go out she has a vest, a dress / top, a cardigan (or two if it is around zero degrees) and then her zip up pink worm … and gloves and a hat. A far cry from sitting on the beach in California in her nappy!! I always figure if she gets hot we can take clothes off to cool down … and she’s generally happy and cheery or fast asleep with a big grin when we’re out so I think we’re doing ok!!!
Anyway, off now to pick her up (she’s been out) and put her back into the cold car before coming home to hear all about her day. Since the MMR jabs she’s insisted on staying up alot of the night to tell me about her days and to hold on tight when I eventually give up trying to get her back to sleep in her cot and have her in with me. She holds my hand in her sleep .. it makes me so happy, if a little on the sleepy side myself … and while I’m thinking about it she’s also invented a game … she peeks through the bars of her cot having lifted up the flap of material (bumper??) which is there to stop her banging her head on the bars and she laughs or rather chortles so I notice her, then when she knows I’m looking she turns away and waits and then turns back again chortling and so pleased with herself … and she dances a little happy dance to herself… she’s going to be a ‘proper little madam’ as Just William once said!
Maybe, if the snow is still here tomorrow I’ll have a think about a small sledge ride … across the flat … we’ll see! Right now it’s really cold outside and very icy but still absolutely beautiful.
lost gloves …
