Pawprints

Pawprints and little bird claw prints, too. The snow is laced with them.

There are big sole-of-the-bootprints, too, because I went down yesterday to feed the one solitary duck on the river. However, I think he'd already been fed. Frequently and a lot. A chef would have taken one look at him and written a menu. (Not for me, by the way, I'm vegetarian.) Anyway, I stood at the bottom of the garden with a pot of proper duck food (the real thing, from Barnitts of York) and he didn't even flap.

There are little bird tracks everywhere, and Captain Padra had snow on his head so I arranged into a circlet. There is a snowman in a garden at the end of the road, and all day children have been sledging down the hills. Daughter in Cardiff loves snow but her little car does not, so she's walking or cycling to work every day.

I have a problem. I am an author, and have to be sensible and get down to some serious hard work in the morning. But I am a children's author, and, as C S Lewis said, it's the silliest children who are the most childish and the silliest grown-ups who are the most grown-up. So maybe an important part of my job is to lie in wait for Tony with a pile of snowballs.

You may like to know that Biryani was an angel cat yesterday. She went in and out of her box quite calmly and didn't bite anyone, even the vet.

I've just realised that I've made a big mistake with the post.

Tony reads it. And his aim is better than mine.