Snow, continued

 

Walking home last night was magical.  There was no wind, and the snow was falling hard, and new snow is so incredibly white—or it is out here in the almost-boonies—that the night wasn't even properly dark.  Yes, there are streetlights, but this time of year the hellhounds' final hurtle is pretty invariably after dark, and it's dark.  But not when there's snow lighting up the place like millions of tiny moons picking up the dim yellow electric light and turning it into Shangri-La.  Well, except for trudging up the hill through the town when the Monster Plough went past us at speed, driving a bow-wave that would not have disgraced an aircraft carrier, and drowned us briefly in a snowdrift.  That was not very romantic.  I tell myself that the driver wouldn't have been expecting pedestrians at that hour* but my suspicion is that it was a bit more Major Kong riding the missile toward the end of the world and yelling YAHOO!**  Anyway.  The end of the world shot on up the hill and took a hard left, nearly burying itself in its own bow-wave, and disappeared out of our lives.  And yaktrax, dearly as I love them, fervently as I declaim my gratitude . . . they do have a weakness.  In fluffy fresh still-falling snow they ball like crazy, and you have to keep knocking the stuff loose.  So you walk step step step BONK step step step step BONK.  Not a big deal.  But the rolling gait as if drunken or recently home from the sea*** was due to external conditions.

Can't you get a move on? Our feet are freezing.

 

Home at last

            Today as we scampered around kicking snow over one another and barking† I was thinking that this was in fact a perfectly nice winter day, I'm just not used to it any more.  I'm not used to the time it takes to frelling suit up:  I just want to slap on the All Stars and the leads and go.  But okay, my snow instincts will reassert if necessary.  Grumbling all the way, but hey.  Meanwhile, however, tonight looks like being more seriously nasty:  temperatures down in the teens††.   Time to get out the serious snow kit.

            Time for the . . . 

the serious gloves

 No, really.  Very serious.  They were so serious I couldn't face paying that much for gloves, except they were on sale.  All the normal colours had sold out.  For some reason these were left.

and the hot pink balaclava

I just happen to have one.  No, this one I didn't buy.  I have . . . strange friends.  Strange friends who knit.

* * *

* Well, what do you think? 

** We're all up on our cult 1960s films, aren't we?  

*** Speaking of 1960s cultural icons, my first thought about the driver of the snow plough was more Jamie Brockett's Titanic captain:  I'M GONNA MOVE YOU BABY.   But the main roads are clear today, so that seems a little unkind.  If I'm feeling rather apocalyptic tonight it might have something to do with the fact that Thursday evening handbells were cancelled due to Fernanda being snowed in^.  Niall, who believes that handbells are critical to life to those of us with the disease, you have to keep checking your blood-handbell level, and it's dangerous if it falls below a certain point, actually phoned me and tried to convince me that we could drive to Fernanda.  Uh.  You got that about the 'snowed in'?   We're going to park at the bottom of her Ben Nevis and hike?  Well.  I could.  I have yaktrax. 

            Anyway.  As soon as I post I'm going to ring some handbells on Pooka, my little personal Apocalypse.  I don't want to play fast and loose with my blood-handbell level.  One of the additional weirdnesses of finally having broken the bell-simulator barrier with the iPhone Mobel is that bells are the one thing I do in company.  The great life-altering aspect of bell ringing for me is that it's absolutely a team sport, and I've avoided team sports like, er, the apocalypse, till now.  And somehow or other here I find myself again, crouched intensely over some damn obsessive thing alone. . . . I suppose I could have let Niall talk me into The Assault on Mount Everest.   

^ Colin, in theory, was in another county ringing a peal this afternoon.  I imagine he's actually at home watching TV and having a few beers.  Did I tell you that Monday practise was a disaster?  It was a disaster.  Don't ask.+  I may take up beer and TV.++  

+ My only comfort was that I wasn't the only one having a bad night.  In fact I think everyone but Colin was having a bad night.    

++ Naaaaah.  With Mobel and Beltower~ in the house?  Not a chance.  

~ Which I still can't use.  It gives me all the old bell-simulator-AAAAUGH! feelings.  Sigh.  Never mind.  Mobel and I are getting on great. 

† Of course I bark too.  Arf!  Arf!  

†† Er—minus 8 or 12 or so for you modern Celsius types

my heroines