SNOW.

This was the view from our kitchen window yesterday afternoon. It made me so happy. I love snow, it's so evocative. It reminds me of being a kid in Germany, of skiing, of Christmas. In particular it brings back vivid memories of happy times spent with certain people such as a snow picnic with my school friends, or rushing down to the christmas markets in Düsseldorf after the last day of school with our friends to go ice-skating and look at all the toy displays in the shop windows. I remember building a giant snowman with my brothers and pulling my little cousins along on sledges, I remember watching the snow fall from inside our kitchen whilst I had a cup of tea and a chin-wag with my Mum. Then there's the time I sat in a car chatting for a good two hours with one of my friends wrapped up in my coat and listening to John Mayer. I'm even taken back to a sleigh-ride in Austria with my girlfriends when I was about nine-years old. We whizzed through the snow, snuggled under blankets and then had a hot chocolate from a Chalet in the middle of the woods.

Snow is so magical. The other night as I walked back through Clifton after my rehearsals it looked like glitter was falling from the sky. I stood under the street lamp and just marvelled and its beauty. I mean Clifton looks like a film-set most of the time, but in that moment I felt like I was in a movie. As I said a little prayer of thanks, I felt God say 'Just for you Ellie, this little bit of snow is just for you'. So as well as making incredibly nostalgic, snow is God's little, sparkly gift to me this Christmas :-)