The first snow of the winter arrived. He looked out at the path and the fields, transformed, covered in a smooth white cowling.

This might be the last time he would see such a sight, the pure untrodden blanket, but he’d thought that every winter for the last decade and still he soldiered on.

Each year the aches and pains returned as the warmth of the summer vanished, the sounds faded as his hearing diminished, the colours dimmed as his eyesight faltered.

Yet he always survived and was always glad to. There was still so much to enjoy in life. His grandchildren for a start. He never thought he would have seen them into their teenage years.

Well, maybe for the last time, he thought, as he set off. In the silence that the snowfall brings he heard that joyous crunch as his foot broke the crisp surface.

He walked…