How lucky are those of you who live in old houses - even if not very old, but just ones that still have double-glazed windows and a wide window sill. In winter frosts, the glass in such windows becomes overgrown with sparkling ice patterns - and the usual street disappears somewhere, as if an unknown wizard has transported your house to a fabulous diamond forest. How nice it is to sit on a comfortable windowsill, peer into the distance of the icy thicket, and figure out what funny creatures and terrible monsters you can meet as you set off along the path drawn by the breath of Winter... Your little grandparents, great-grandparents and great-grandfathers loved to sit on the windowsill in the same way. ... Perhaps Winter still remembers the tales that she whispered to them in ancient times.