Today I woke up to about 2 inches of snow outside our bedroom window. The baby woke me, crying because he thought he was hungry, but then when I tried to feed him he decided he wasn't, and just went wide-awake instead. No chance of sleep after that. Normally this would be a very bad start to my morning at 8am, but I always feel invigorated and overjoyed by even the sight of snow, and when I came downstairs to make coffee and saw the peaceful whiteness everywhere, I smiled to myself like a kid. I mean, there's peaceful, and then there's the kind of peaceful that comes with a thick layer of fresh snow all over a quiet country town. Little stone walls and trees covered with the stuff. Kids out flinging snowballs at windows dressed in hats and gloves with the labels still hanging off them, because for some reason no one was ready for this winter. I blame Al Gore. He told us all that we were only going to get warmer, so everyone forgot to buy hats.
It's time for...what? Traffic is clogged up on the slushy main roads all over North Yorkshire, and schools and offices everywhere have shut down for the day, but I can't call off work claiming that I'm snowed in, because I work from home. So, it's time for work. However, work is not what I'm going to do. I'm going out for a snowy walk along the river with my family to go and have tea in Josh's grandmother's house a little further down the valley. Yes, valley. I'm not a city boy any more, and I love it.