On handprints and snow

Today seems to have been dominated by handprints and snow.  Predominantly snow, if I'm honest.  The above photo was taken at lunchtime, when there was merely a light dusting.  Jasmine insisted on pressing her hands into its pristine whiteness.  Snow was her favourite and her best, she proclaimed.

The walk to Sonny's nursery was unencumbered by snow - none had settled on the path and we made it there in under 20 minutes.  Sonny went off (after some tears and much coaxing) to paint snowmen and Jasmine and I made the walk back into town; again, without incident.

We had a few jobs to do; nothing terribly exciting.  It took a while, and we eventually made it home around 3pm.  At this point, the snow had started to pick up, as had the wind.  Jasmine and I busied ourselves with crafts, producing the following work of art, amongst other things.

Handprint garden

As the minutes ticked by, the snow's descent became more urgent, and a lot thicker.  By the time we were ready to leave to collect Sonny from nursery, it was 5:15 and everywhere was covered.  The roads were treacherous, traffic was horrendous and the buggy struggled to make tracks through the dense white coating atop the paths. 

After a rather fruitless 15 minutes, I decided that we'd be better off catching a bus to take us the rest of the mile up the road to Sonny's nursery.  By this time, traffic was ridiculously slow, but Jasmine was beginning to complain about being cold and the buggy really was having trouble going anywhere, so I figured we had little choice but to join the line of queuing motorists. 

Almost an hour later, we still had yet to reach the road that leads to Sonny's nursery, and we were now almost half an hour late in collecting him.  We asked the driver to open the doors for us to leave the vehicle despite being between stops, and he obliged.

Quickly, we made our way to the nursery, collected the boy and began our slow, cold walk home.  Jasmine cried the whole way, sad because her hands were frozen.  Eventually, I resorted to sitting her in the shopping basket at the bottom of the pushchair and hoping for the best.  This doubled the weight I had to push through the thick snow, meaning that our journey was prolonged further.  It was also bloody hard work!

I took this photo during a quick breather at some point along the way:



Not a happy bunny

Finally, we made it home, at 19:14.  Two hours to do a two mile round trip that usually takes us 40 minutes at the most.

Incredibly, Sonny fell asleep on the way home:

It was so lovely to be home, and warm.  I have a suspicion that tomorrow may well be a duvet day!