BRITISH SUMMER TIME...

...ends next weekend!
Don't you just hate it when it starts getting dark in the afternoon? The only upside I can think of is that, for a couple of weeks, it will be a bit lighter when the puppies get up in the morning. As for the rest of it - well, I just find it a bit depressing really.
On the other hand I DO love real winter weather. I'm just like a kid when it snows - so long as I don't have to drive in it. There's nothing nicer than being all warm and cosy indoors, preferably with a mug of hot chocolate, when it's bleaching down with snow outside. I WAS going to say that it's been a few years since we had a decent snow fall, but actually we DID have a couple of heavy falls last winter, when the village transformed into a silent, winter wonderland. It's funny how a heavy snow fall muffles sound isn't it? I suppose some of that is attributable to the fact that there's no traffic on the move - or certainly not where WE live, but I love it when you wake up in the morning and just know, before you even draw back the curtains, that it snowed in the night.
One of my fondest memories of winter weather is of the time when I was a student in Oxford. It was just coming up to Christmas (I'm SURE our terms were longer than those that students have these days! They seem to start term at the beginning of October and then they're finished for Christmas by the end of the month!!!) and I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping in the centre of Oxford. It was late in the afternoon and dark, the church bells were ringing and snow was falling. I'd got all my presents and packages and was looking forward to going home to spend the holiday with my family. It really did seem to be the perfect, romantic start to Christmas.
Anyway, enough of that. Don't want to start on Christmas yet, thank you very much.