Sunlight dances over the little girl's dark curls as she toddles clumsily through the dry grass. Her rosy cheeks dimple as she grins, her green eyes sparkling as she lunges sticky fingers towards the camera.
Suddenly she trips.
The picture immediately jolts and twists into the grass, continuing at a skewed angle as a chestnut-haired woman rushes over to the child. But she is not crying. The screen fills with silent giggles as her mother scoops her up, her beautiful face filled with tenderness as she cuddles her daughter tightly, protectively, holding her so close it seems she'll never let go.
The picture begins to blur...

I click the remote and the image flicks off, plunging the room into darkness. I stare at the blank screen. It's weird watching your memories on TV, like watching a movie. It's like somewhere, in some wonderful world, those moments are trapped, bottles, to be enjoyed again. I wonder if heaven's like that - if you get to choose the best moments of your life and just relive them over and over. I hope so.
The world outside looks different already. A desert of white - the first white Christmas Eve in Sussex in years. The snow hides everything, glossing over the Lumps and dips and tufts to leave a perfect, smooth surface. Like icing on a Christmas cake. It's all still there, though. The dirty gravel that hisses and spits as you drive

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