Big Village, Little Village

Our new house is within easy walking distance of two villages. There's the village we nominally live in, Dobcross, which is up the hill and behind where we live. Dobcross has got a pub, a Post Office and a shop, but is really only a Little Village. However, about a quarter of an hour down the main road from our house is Uppermill, which has rather more hustle and bustle about it, and is definitely a Big Village.

Today started off with a trip to the Big Village, to go to the bank, surgery, butcher and baker. G managed to scream her way through three of these. As I struggled to get her to calm down in the surgery waiting room, several old ladies shot me looks which they might have imagined were sympathetic, but which gave away their true feelings: 'Who is this idiot? And what is he doing with that poor child?' Ignoring the sceptical looks of elderly women is an occupational hazard for the stay-at-home dad.

I think G was just bored of lying in her pram, because whenever I picked her up she calmed down. Eventually on the walk back home she drifted off to sleep, so I decided to head up the hill to the Little Village, to reward myself with a bowl of soup and a half pint in the pub, as shown in the picture. I know that drinking halves is a bit half-arsed, but it's the least you can do to salvage a bit of self-respect when you're basically doorstepping a pub at 12 o'clock while in charge of a baby.

As you can see it was lovely and cosy in there with the fire, so you can imagine my alarm when I looked up from my soup to see that it had started snowing outside. Thankfully it was just a flurry, and I was able to push G back home down the hill during a break in the weather. Although if we'd got snowed in up there, I think we would have managed just fine.