I woke up this morning feeling groggy and slow. I stumbled out of bed, coaxed Maya out of the bedroom (she wanted to stay and wake up Patrick!), staggered into the bedroom...and felt all that early-morning grouchiness flood right out of me when I looked out the window. It had snowed! I was so excited, I brought the camera along on Maya's first walk of the day, five minutes later:



Of course, being Leeds, the snow had nearly all melted by noon...but it was a lovely morning surprise anyway.

I've spent most of today re-reading The Talisman Ring and giggling like crazy. Here's one of my favorite bits from the beginning, where Sir Tristram Shield (a very worthy and sensible gentleman from Berkshire) and Eustacie de Vauban (a highly imaginative and romantic girl from France) are realizing exactly how un-suited they are for the marriage of convenience that's been proposed to them:

He could not help laughing, but said: "Is it so terrible?"

"Yes it is!" said Eustacie. "First I have to live in Sussex, and now I am to go to Bath - to play backgammon! And after that you will take me to Berkshire, where I expect I shall die."

"I hope not!" said Shield.

"Yes, but I think I shall," said Eustacie, propping her chin in her hands and gazing mournfully into the fire. "After all, I have had a very unhappy life without any adventures, and it would not be wonderful if I went into a decline. Only nothing that is interesting ever happens to me," she added bitterly, "so I daresay I shall just die in child-bed, which is a thing that could happen to anyone."

Sir Tristram flushed uncomfortably. "Really, Eustacie!" he protested.

Eustacie was too much absorbed in the contemplation of her dark destiny to pay any heed to him. "I shall present to you an heir," she said, "and then I shall die." The picture suddenly appealed to her; she continued in a more cheerful tone: "Everyone will say that I was very young to die, and they will fetch you from the gaming-hell where you - "

"Fetch me from where?" interrupted Sir Tristram, momentarily led away by this flight of imagination.

"From the gaming-hell," repeated Eustacie impatiently. "Or perhaps the Cock-Pit. It does not signify; it is quite unimportant! But I think you will feel great remorse when it is told to you that I am dying, and you will spring up and fling yourself on your horse, and ride ventre-á-terre to come to my deathbed. And then I shall forgive you, and - "

"What in heaven's name are you talking about?" demanded Sir Tristram. "Why should you forgive me? Why should - What is this nonsense?"

Eustacie, thus rudely awakened from her pleasant dream, sighed and abandoned it. "It is just what I thought might happen," she explained.

I love Georgette Heyer so much!