an ode to cats and dogs...and snow

It's snowing!! What could be more delicious than our chocolate-box village covered in virgin snow! My clients all cancelled so I went back to bed with a hot water bottle (period pains) and read a book then, ahem, drifted back asleep...oops. I love it when the world grinds to a halt like this; the park is suddenly full of families, mums and dads sledging with their kids, shrieks of delight because everyone has 'permission' to spend a day together. Noone can get anywhere here and there's a real comradeship and evident thrill in it.

A kind of freedom in calling up your boss and saying 'I can't come in today...' Yes, yes, yes!! No need to fake a dodgy throat before dashing out to gambol about in the snow and make snow angels. R and I had a ridiculous amount of fun burying ourselves in snow and videoing our sausage dog leaping about in it when it snowed before Christmas. Unfortunately the party-poopers have been moaning about the poor service of commuter trains when it snows so today they're running them. Altogether now...booooooooo. So R made it into work, although it took him 3.5 hours. Totally utterly pointless when he could be larking about in the snow with ME!! So, judging by news reports etc., snow is officially NO LONGER FUN (as in all the pics in the paper when it first snowed of aforementioned families etc.) but SERIOUSLY INCONVENIENT AND DANGEROUS (see scaremongering Tories trying to tell us we'll all be dead in our beds by the end of the week/'I can't get to work for one day' protests).

Well, well, I'm here to soak up the beautiful perfect silence that descends with a blanket of snow. Was dreaming again about Scotland (despite our deciding we're definitely not moving there now) and being holed-up in some remote house with a roaring fire - I love the wilderness of the Highlands. The utter escapism, the peace and solitude. The magic of hiking in silence for several hours and then coming face to face with a stag. It seems like another reality, transcending realms-especially when the stag meets your gaze for what seems like minutes on end before darting off. I like that a lot about Scotland.

R and I have had a funny week of people being surprised we don't have a TV. 'What do you do in the evenings?' is their plaintive cry...it really freaks people out. Some are anxious that we're missing such cultural milestones as 'The X Factor' and 'Strictly Come Dancing'. This worries them deeply. We usually say that we try and work our way through the book mountains that threaten to swallow up our teeny living space, book mountains which have only increased since Christmas with a vague promise from R that he's going to put up 'another shelf' -where I ask you?! We cook together, eat together, do puzzles together, sometimes play Scrabble together (but he always wins, grrrrr), sometimes watch a film together on the computer (yes, we are in the technological age!) but mostly we sit in front of the fire with our animals.

Which leads me to the point of this rambling post (you can tell it's a day off for me!) which is how great it is to have a menagerie of pets to welcome you home. Each of our three cats is uniquely different with their own quirky mannerisms, things that make us laugh until our sides ache. And as for the sausage dog, well, you can imagine how amusing and lovely she is. Our pets have brought an incredible amount of love into our lives. I simply cannot imagine life without their furry comfort, their beautiful wise feline/canine eyes, their ability to be completely in the moment, to take immense pleasure in just being near me and R. They all bundle into a pile by the fire and sleep with their arms and paws entwined (99% of the photos we take are of these moments!). They have, throughout the years, been an immense source of comfort and kindness. They seek us out when we are sad, our dog in particular comes rushing out if she hears crying and has been known to lick tears away. To R and I, they are our family and we are so blessed that these 4 little souls share our home. As I write, they're all curled up snoozing, blissfully aware that they're the most loved animal companions in the world.