Through The Windowpane

It's been snowing a lot here in Saddleworth over the last couple of days. It's meant that me and G have been more or less stuck indoors, watching the landscape around gradually becoming whiter and whiter from the snug safety of our living room.

I couldn't resist taking her for a quick walk yesterday afternoon though. I went to the shed to get our off-road pram out, and got back to the front door to find G with her nose pressed against the glass, presumably wondering what I was doing. She seemed happy enough, but that was probably because she had no idea what I had in store for her:

When it snowed last winter and G was still a tiny baby, it was easy enough to cram her into a snowsuit and off we went. Now she's a lot bigger, and lot more fidgety, so making sure she's wrapped up as she should be is considerably trickier. Don't even ask about trying to get the wellies to stay on.

But eventually we made it out into the cold, and my off-road machine did us proud as I pushed G through the snow and down onto the canal towpath for a walk to Uppermill. She seemed happy enough although her face quickly started to glow red. Also glowing was the light of lamps from the odd house, and soon that was just about all that was visible in the murk as the daylight faded:

I imagine that scene hasn't changed all that much since the canal was built more than two centuries ago. In fact, with all the gloom and snow I thought it was all a bit Dickensian, like something out of A Christmas Carol. Although given how her parents and the rest of her family dote on her, I imagine G will have rather more stuff to enjoy this Christmas than poor old Tiny Tim did.

Wikipedia (and who could doubt the veracity of the information contained on that sage website) actually claims that the Tiny Tim character was based on the invalid son of a mill owner that Dickens knew in Manchester of all places. It's probably just a coincidence, but if I start seeing ghosts as we get closer to Christmas, I'll let you know.