not to be travelled lightly

The snow isn't particularly cripplingly deep round here but the pavements are all quite slippy away from the single main street and I'd be paranoid enough about Nicky walking about on uneven slippery surfaces even if she wasn't balancing for two, so a few minutes' shuffling carefully along icy pavements got us to the path along the old railway where the vegetation-based surface beneath the snow provided much more traction. The cold and snow meant that there were no golfers to spoil the pleasantness (though their structures and path-encroachment always irritate) and we couldn't have past more than seven or eight dogs, at least two of which were re-attached to their leads as we approached. There's always going to be some dogshit on that path but it's reasonably visible on the top of nice white snow, even when some sort of moron has smeared some all over the path after stepping in it. It's always a bit weird walking back the same way you've walked out somewhere so we returned via road, though the verge again provided grip to people unable to walk on the icy road surface. There were a few cars trundling slowly past but no-one being too stupid and no tracks in the snow from between the road and hedge indicating past stupidity.

Despite knowing the extreme futility of looking in the shops in the village for things I'm used to being able to find in a range of shops back home I popped out to look in a couple of shops just in case they had something in which would mean that I didn't need to slightly rearrange my gift-distribution. They didn't have anything suitable but all thought that one of the others would. I did manage to find some proper Nairn's rough oatcakes in the smaller of the two food-shops to have something to nibble at which isn't made of chocolate or some other form of fat though also made some more chocolatey muffin-cakelets to replace the load my dad baked prior to our arrival but which had already been almost finished.