Hello readers,

This is a winter story about Errol and his best friend,  Herring Gull Harry, and the adventure they had with a pair of ice skates.  The story is going to be told between now and the end of of Christmas with a new chapter added each day.

I  hope that you enjoy this (and the festive period too!) ……

Chapter 3: The Frozen Lake

On hearing Errol’s knock, Herring Gull Harry hopped quickly to his front door, flinging on his woolly hat and scarf as he went.

“Morning, Errol,” he said as he opened the door.  Surprised to see a very wet and bedraggled Errol, he added, “what happened to you, you look as though you swam here!”

“I might as well have,” mumbled Errol. “I slipped on some ice and ended up in a very large snowdrift.”

“Poor you,” Herring Gull Harry said sympathetically. “Fancy going down to the lake?  I hear there are some winter sports going on there”.

So the two friends hopped their way down to the lake which glistened and sparkled in the winter sunshine.  In the middle of the lake two arenas had been set up; one where some frogs were busy ice-skating and on the other one two teams were playing a furious game ice hockey.

The two friends watched the ice hockey for a few minutes and then Herring Gull Harry turned to Errol saying, “I don’t think that that is for me.”

“Nor me,” agreed Errol.  “Come on.”

They hopped over to watch the ice skating and then saw that someone had painted on the ice an announcement that on New Year’s Eve there would be an ice skating competition taking place on the lake – all competitors welcome.

The two frogs read this and then looked at one another and saw that they were thinking the same thought.

“Shall we?” said Errol.

“Why not,” said Herring Gull Harry. “It will be frogtastic and I quite like the idea of winning a year’s supply of fly and mosquito cookies.”

So, the two friends made their way home to find their ice skates.

Chapter 2: In A Pickle!

One minute Errol was hopping down the street and the next – well, he’d slipped on some black ice and went flying through the air and was now lying splat surrounded by a high wall of snow.  He got his breath back and sat up.  He was cold and wet and his scarf lay limply around his throat making him feel even colder.  From where he was sitting, the sky seemed to be a slightly different colour of white from the snow.

He stood up gingerly and tried to hop out of the snow drift but the wall of snow was too high.  As he was lying half out of the snow drift with his legs still in it, he decided to slowly heave himself out of the snow drift.

He was now very, very wet and cold too so, to warm himself up again, he decided to hop as quickly as he could to Herring Gull Harry’s house and knocked on his front door.

Chapter 1: The Snowdrift

It was that time of year again, froglettes.  The days were shorter and the nights were even longer than usual.  In the small town of Marblefish it had been snowing all day every day for the last week without stopping and now the snow lay like a thick carpet over the countryside. All the rivers and ponds too had disappeared too under a thick blanket of ice.

Today it was Boxing Day and it had finally stopped snowing.  Having been house-bound for a week, the doors gradually started to open and animals appeared in the streets again, glad to finally get out and about.

Errol was no exception. He wrapped his red scarf around his neck and opened his front door full of excitement. He shivered as he hopped out into the cold air that greeted him, closed his front door and just as he was about to make his way over to Herring Gull Harry’s house, he somehow managed to hop straight into a snowdrift that was just lying there, waiting for him in the street.