Well, we have had snow (or Scchhhnow as Sophie calls it) on the ground now for a month, and it is a very strange thing indeed.  The first big batch was before Christmas, and it was the stuff of childrens dreams. It fell for a few days, the sun came out and everything sparkled.  It was sticky and clumped together so easily that a small innocent snowball could easily become a snowman in mere minutes.  The first weekend after the snow, Guys sister Rachel and family were due to visit. With clear skys they travelled up the M1 with no problem.  We sampled lots of Uncle Pauls homemade beer, which by the way is stunning, and as usual, fed our guests til they popped.  Earlier in the year, we had bought Frank a sledge, which he brought with him.  The boys had a fab time sledging and even Sophie had a go…but bailed out on the floor as soon as she picked up speed! Quite suddenly on the Sunday, the weather changed.  We’d decided in the morning that an early dinner would help our travelling family get ahead of the weather but all of a sudden we were in the midst of a blizzard and happy faces turned to grave concern.  Paul and Guy quickley lobbed everything into the Ainley-Carrunthers family Bongo and off they went.  About 3.5 hours later we had a call to say they were home safely, and were relieved to say the least.  At New Year, we had another big dump (of snow) and Nanny and Grampy got a chance to play out in the snow as well.  Nanny taught Sophie to throw snowballs at Grampy and Grampy molished a sledge out of a plastic sheet so Sophie could get some impromptu sledging action.  So, a few pics of our scchhnowwwy month!