Observations

Weather
Where we are, it has been snowing all week. That sounds melodramatic, and isn't quite literally true. But there have been days when it has snowed pretty much continuously all the time there has been daylight. It is pretty unusual where we live to have snow at all, let alone snow on five successive days. It has been interesting to see the different varieties of snow "in action". The snow yesterday was really soggy - I saw a child pick up a large snowball he'd just made, which was dribbling water all over his trousers. This wet snow turned to ice overnight, which meant that this morning's dusting of snow made everywhere into something like an ice rink. On the first day, it was perfect snowball snow - cold, light but sticky. In terms of its delivery, we've had grains of snow and small snowflakes, but no really decent blizzards with drifting to confine us to the house.

The wet snow was a bit miserable, but the effect on the light of having the ground covered in white is a great cure for SAD.

Nobody has yet blamed global warming, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

Ambushed by children's books
I went into a bookshop to try and find books for my children, and looked through some of them to choose a suitable one. It's very dangerous. I'm not sure if it's just saudades for a lost time (if such a thing is permissible, even in Portuguese), or if the books genuinely connect with who we are as human beings rather than being sentimental. However, I end up unable to buy the truly beautiful and well-written ones, because I know I couldn't read them to my children without ending up in tears.