After the new year holidays, it was cold and there was a little snow on the ground.

      We were very sad, when our next-door neighbors moved away, after having been such good neighbors for a number of years. These neighbors had given us extra plants, from their garden, including a tiny lilac bush, which was now taller than me.

       It was a bitter, cold wintery night and the wind howled, audibly inside our home. Though mostly cozy, actually we felt gusts of wind somehow permeate the windows and walls.