Scapa has just returned from her walk and, noticing I had a blanket ready to put over my knees on the settee once I’d settled down with my cup of tea, pointedly stood there staring at it and me until I ended up opening it out and lifting it up so she could curl up under the blanket herself. No room for me.
There was a thick frost on the ground this morning, and it still hasn’t entirely shifted as we step into the afternoon. We are due snow this week – Wednesday, apparently – which is all very exciting. Auri, who at nearly four entirely equates snow with Christmas-time for obvious reasons, can’t wait and keeps describing the snowball fights we’re going to have. There are a series of seasonal milestones that are all wonderfully jumbled up in her head right now: Pip being born; Tonton Neeps, Tatie Aurélie and Baby Cousin Ailsa arriving; Christmas; snow. There are probably more. I was trying to explain the concept of ‘Christmas-time’ as opposed to ‘Christmas Day’ to her this morning, when she asked why we already had our tree up if it wasn’t Christmas yet.
We bought our tree and decorated it on Friday. Auri chose it, and a grand job she did, too. Fortunately, Scapa has never been too interested in Christmas Trees other than sniffing them and paying attention to certain ornaments; unfortunately, she has no idea what her tail does at any given time, so there have been a handful of ornaments brought down already due to pre-walk excitement.
So, Croymas has certainly started! And it is a particularly special one this year. Crowmas will officially begin on the 23rd December, when we drive up to Stempster for a few nights. All in all, we have an exciting month ahead of us.
