The story of Teddy's Christmas Journey has been continuing in my German Advent calendar with a daily update.  Poor Teddy is not having a good time of it though and ever since his very shaky start things have most certainly not been going his way.

I had thought that, once he'd found a kindly soul to help him, his worries would be over, especially since I thought the old gentleman looked familiar.

It looked as though he was fine, riding high up there through the deep snow, but not at all - looking more closely, there's a bad crow pecking at his fur!  Oh my. German children need to be pretty robust when it comes to dealing with the imaginary world of storybooks, don't they?

I felt quite relieved to see the picture today, with a somewhat happier outlook, though the small bear has to help out a little by shovelling snow. 

Just like in real life, then!  We went outside to clear the snow from the lane with our neighbour, each starting from the furthest point and meeting in the middle, where they had an impromptu "Golden Spike" moment.

Because we had woken up to a snowy outlook this morning!  Having heard warnings during the last couple of days that had come to nought, we'd relaxed and thought ourselves lucky to have missed it all.  But no. Whilst we slept, the snow quietly fell and by this morning there was quite a deep cover.

It has lasted all day and being Sunday, most people are at home and the village has stayed eerily quiet except for the calls of people having fun on sledges on the far side of the valley.  The forecast is for more to come tomorrow; schools have been closed and the two friends I was meeting for lunch agreed that it's better to reschedule.  What a good opportunity to write all our Christmas cards!