But then . . . . just when we thought it would never arrive we awoke the following Friday to this pretty scene. The garden had been magically transformed overnight.
Hooray! There was a scramble in the playroom as boots were tried on. Belinda and Posy (two of the more sensible dollies) found boots and coats that fitted them well. They bravely plodded about in the snow for a short while but then I think the cold began to bite their fingers and toes and they came back indoors to warm up.
Of course, not everyone in the playroom is as sensible as Belinda and Posy. Any size of boot was put on by these three rascals and they wasted no time in testing the snow . . . and got well and truly stuck so had to be rescued.
The smallest and bravest of all were these little Long Tailed Tits. They flew around our garden in a flock of twelve and fed throughout the snowy days. They didn't squabble and politely took turns at the variety of bird feeders. Such a joy to watch.
And as for us humans? As we live in a fairly remote spot I had filled our two freezers with lots of goodies to keep us warm throughout the days of our snowy confinement. However things did not go to plan. Within a few hours on the first snowy day there was a power cut and the outage continued for three long days. What a disaster. When power was finally resumed the snow had disappeared and the rain had returned and the food in the freezers had melted.
I confess I felt really annoyed and downhearted about the way things turned out. However I constantly reminded myself that, although somewhat limited, we had everything we needed to keep us warm and fed throughout the three days. I often thought of the ever growing number of people who live under bridge arches or populate shop doorways in our largest cities. How do they survive in conditions like these? Things are back to normal here of course but for the many homeless people in our cities I'm afraid their wait for better conditions might be a very long time coming.