On her way back from shopping in the local village, Andrea paused as she drove into the farm driveway. The pond to the left of the drive was covered in ice and snow, and it was shining in the slanting winter sunshine. The dashboard of the car showed the air temperature at 1degC, but there was no wind and she was dressed comfortably in a pair of rubber-seat fits jodhpurs, her Acquo boots and a short jacket. Six months earlier the weather had been so warm and dry that the same pond had been reduced to nothing more than thigh-deep mud. Of course that mud was still there, at the bottom, but now there was 50cm of water on top of it, and then ice above that. I wonder if that ice is thick enough to take my weight, she thought. In the few seconds that it took her to drive to the house and park the truck she'd decided that she should go and find out. It became obvious pretty quickly that the ice was of variable thickness in places it was only a couple of centimetres thick, but in others it was 5 or 6cm.

Smashing and splashing her way through the icy water was great fun, and even when she occasionally slipped-in over the tops of her Acquo boots she remained almost dry because of the fleecy leopard print stocking she wore beneath the boots and the water repellent coating on her jodhpurs. Almost dry, that is, for at least for the first 5 minutes, because Andrea being Andrea she kept pushing the boundaries until she was up to her hips in freezing water and her boots were full to the brims.

When she could no longer feel her toes in her boots and her soaking leather gloves were turning her hands to ice, she headed to the house and ran a lovely hot bath. She didn't bother to remove any of her clothing or her boots, she just stepped right-in and enjoyed warming-up. She'd better clean that bath before anyone sees the muddy ring around the top of it!