SNOW

I'm convinced it took no longer than 30 seconds from the moment I woke up for me to jump out of bed, look out of my window and know that we were not going to school on Tuesday.

A selfie I very quickly took with my window, somehow afraid that the snow would melt and I would miss it!

The view of my street I saw from my window when I awoke on Tuesday morning!

I ran downstairs in excitement and enjoyed a quick breakfast before Alice went to study and I got dressed to go and play in the backyard!

The view of the backyard from Chiara and Massimo's bedroom window 

The Garden Shed 

My feet in the snow! It must've been a foot deep! 

The Massetti's house, from the backyard 

Louise and Thelma (the neighbour's dog) love the snow almost as much as I do! 

Louise and Thelma rolling around in the snow

One of Louise's balls must've been stuck in the fence for a while and formed a nice landing for some snow

There are two sheds in the backyard, but this one is such a beautiful colour I think it looks more like a little cottage

Thelma is terribly photogenic

Snow-covered Casa di Massetti

Once I could convince myself that there aren't any scary bugs or animals in this country, I found a number of wonderful places to explore

Chiara checking that I wasn't hungry or catching hypothermia

The side pathway of the house 

After an hour or so of exploring, running and jumping across every part of the backyard, I decided to check out the front yard.

The house from the front yard

A neighbouring house

Our beautiful little street

The calm I felt as I walked about the front yard in the gently falling snow was very rudely interrupted when I went to take a photo of a nearby tree and very suddenly had what felt like several bucket-loads of snow dumped on me and my camera from the tree above. Standing by myself, I didn't know what to do, however I really hope that there was someone in the street watching from their window as they would have been thoroughly entertained to see me freeze in shock, check that my camera had survived and then burst into a fit of laughter.

A selfie I took after I had just about finished dying of laughter and shaken most of the snow off 

The place where I was standing when I was attacked by the falling snow

 I took the attack as my que to go back inside and get warm. However after about five minutes of defrosting, just as I was about to make a cup of tea, Alice appeared dressed and ready to go outside and play with me. So to the backyard again it was!

Alice :) 

There and then we decided it was time to make some snow angels! It was wondrous fun, until Thelma decided that she wanted to join in...

Alice's snow angel

Ciao Thelma!

Playful Louise

Chiara then suggested that we take Louise for a walk around Noviglio and another small comune that is nearby.

The untouched snow as we left our street

Walking out of Noviglio

Walking out of Noviglio we found that the rice fields surrounding Noviglio had become and endless expanse of white. I have never, ever seen anything like it before. And so I went running through it!

A panorama of the rice fields

Tiny little me in the miles and miles of snow!

After I'd had my fill of running and running and looking around at the endless white we continued on the road to the nearby little comune, named Tainate.

The tiny little church in Tainate

There we chose at random which streets to take and found ourselves a very, very, very large park which, like the rice crops, had become a huge pan of white. Although unlike the rice crops, which were difficult to run on as the plants stuck upwards out of the snow, the park was flat grass underneath the snow, and so it was easy to run and jump and even fall over onto the fluffy and light snow there. While Alice decided to play photographer, Louise and I chased eachother about, running as far as I could before falling over. I felt completely like a five-year-old again as I skipped and cartwheeled and jumped and ran about.

This is the park, and the houses in the distance are Noviglio

Eventually Louise insisted that Alice join in the fun

Alice and Louise

We ran far enough out into the park that when I turned back, this was the view of Tainate

After an hour or so of this, Chiara called Alice to say that she was coming to pick us up to go out for lunch, so we made our way back to the road, and up through a different part of Tainate.

A stream that runs through a part of the park and Tainate

For lunch Chiara took us to a wonderful place that she had been talking about since I arrived. It is called "Guzzafame" and is not only a restaurant but a farm and grocery store too. The place is designed so that they organically (with no use of chemicals) grow their own vegetables, milk their own cows, breed their own chickens, grow their own wine grapes and flour and make their own cheese and bread. You can buy their products from their store and when you eat at the restaurant, every ingredient used is from their own farm; nothing is bought in. It was undoubtedly the best lunch I have so far had in Italy, and the very very best bread I've tasted too. AND I enjoyed another panecotta!

Guzzafame panecotta!

The rest of the day was calming as we came home for a warm shower, pasta for dinner and tea by the fire afterwards. And now it is safe to say that this day goes down as one of the most incredible days I've had to date. Snow is magic!