1. Waking up to a curious brightness at the tops of the curtains that can only mean one thing: SNOW DAY. A good foot had fallen in the night, covering the half-arsed efforts from earlier in the week.
2. A wren scrabbiting about under the azaeleas. It looked like a little ball of feathers with a too-long tail.
3. Cutting beanpoles in the woods. 'It has to be done this weekend or something'll stop me next weekend and then suddenly it'll be too late.' So we took the billhook and the loppers and dived off the road into uncharted territory. Every step we took made the ground under the snow release a rotty smell. It's a strange sort of place, a coppiced wood in the snow. You can see the road; and you can see the fields and hedge and you know the trees are like this because man has cultivated them; but you still feel as if you are trespassing a little. It's the sort of place where you might put your bill hook down for a moment and find that it's vanished when you turn back.
