It’s been snowing here at the Mansion today.

The day started in sub-zero temperatures with the Grinds looking as though they’d been carved out of ice. As soon as I saw that I went straight back to bed.

I drifted off into a lovely, wonderful sleep – the kind you get when you go back in a morning. It wasn’t long before I found myself on an escalator, watching a red balloon.

A gust of wind woke me. Not inside, I hasten to add, the wind had whipped up outside. I say wind, but it was actually the rain being pelted against the glass on the window. The windows are meant to be double-glazed, but I could still hear that noise clearly. Obviously, as it woke me.

I decided to get up, and looked out of the window again. The car was still frozen solid, but the rest of the Courtyard, and the Grinds for that matter, had thawed out rather nicely.

By the time I’d finished getting ready, the car too was thoroughly defrosted.

One of my favourite chores of winter is standing out there on a freezing cold morning hacking the ice away from the windscreens so I can drive off to goodness knows where – however, today I was slightly pleased that I didn’t need to do that.

When I eventually ventured outside, it was trying to snow.

I like that phrase. It was trying to snow. It was. It. The outside.

So, with the outside trying to snow, I set off on foot to go to the shop. I hadn’t forgotten about the car, by the way, but I decided to walk. Another reason why I was pleased that I hadn’t spent an absolute age trying to hack the ice away from the windscreens.

It was still trying to snow as I walked back from the shop. You could tell that it was desperate to snow, but couldn’t quite do it just at that time.

The good thing about it trying to snow, is that it looks as though it is raining and/or snowing but it actually isn’t, so one doesn’t get terribly wet. Hence the walking.

When I was back inside the Mansion, I looked out again to see that it had managed it, and it was snowing. Big, thick, fluffy white flakes were falling. I quite like watching heavy snowfall as I feel like I’m being carried upwards, even though I’m staying exactly where I am.

Another good thing about this snowfall was the fact that as the ground was wet, from when it was trying to snow – although one doesn’t get terribly wet, the ground still does – the actual snow couldn’t settle. The wet ground being just a tad too warm for the fresh snow to form its first layer.

It’s stopped snowing now, and the skies have cleared. The ground is still wet. The temperatures have dropped. Not quite sub-zero, but getting there.

If the ground doesn’t dry by the time it goes sub-zero, obviously that ‘it’ being the outside again and not the ground, then the ground and the outside will become frozen solid once more. The Grinds will become a winter wonderland, with the Courtyard transforming into an ice rink.

When I get up tomorrow morning and see that, I shall return to bed once more. Although where I’ll end up after I drift off then remains to be seen.

See… even in a Parallel Universe, sometimes, the days are so… normal.