It was here today and gone today -- or, rather, yesterday...SEVEN INCHES OF SNOW FORECAST! ROAD AND RAIL CHAOS PREDICTED! yelled the newspaper headlines on the previous day. And so we dug out our wellies and waited with our anoraks, mittens and mufflers at the ready...
We duly awoke to the threatened whirling whiteness... HURRAH! But then, within a matter of hours, the long-awaited snow - feared or desired, depending on your age! - was reduced to little more than a sloppy, unwelcome mess of khaki-coloured slush!
The photographic opportunities I'd been hoping for - especially since David now has a Nice New Camera - proved, in the event, disappointingly limited, especially once everything had started to drip --- although David and his NNC did succeed in catching a drip - in the very act of dripping!
There were the usual examples of the way in which snow can miraculously transform our everyday world: turning a mundane, humdrum scene - such as an abandoned matress and a platoon of black bin-bags...
...into a snow-covered mundane, humdrum scene!
And there was also the chance to marvel at the defiant resiliance of Mother Nature as a flower-bed full of pansies bravely managed to keep their heads up and remain smiling despite the weight of an icy duvet.
Then there was the chance to remember - through the wide-eyed wonder and excited laughter of children - the snowfalls of our own youth...
... the fun of foot-writing in the snow...
...the sheer misery of realising that - somewhere en route to the park - you must have dropped one of your favourite gloves (and there are few more tragic sights in life than a lone lost glove)...
...and, of course, the ear-stinging thrills and spills of the snowball fight!
If only it could have lasted just a little longer...
Oh, well, maybe next year!
In the meantime, you can view some more photographs that David took with his Nice New Camera on the David Weeks blog; and you can enjoy some more of Button's snow adventures on his personal blogsite, a rabbit's ramblings.
[Photographs: © David Weeks and Brian Sibley]
6 comments:
Is it me or does it snow less than it used to? I remember snow being up to my thighs as a kid, but now I'm excited by just enough snow to cover the drab grey concrete of Manchester!
I hate snow! Especially like yesterday when it melted straight away. There's nothing more fun than a showball fight, but having to restrain 70 odd 6 to 9 year olds from throwing MUD-balls is something else! Yeeurgh!
The thing is, ANDY, the snow probably DID come up to your thighs then - your thighs would have been nearer the ground in those days!
Still, I know what you mean... In fact, I was struck, yesterday, by the number of people in our local park who were desperately scraping together enough snow to make a snowball so as to be able to pose for a photo in the snow -- there simply wasn't enough of the stuff to go round!
As for SUZANNE's comment, there are - as you well know - few things that 6 to 9 years olds (whether "odd" or even) like doing more than throwing things - especially messy or mucky things!
But I sympathise and agree with you both, because, yes, snow is meant to FALL in sufficient, thigh-threatening quantities and, having fallen, it is then supposed to LIE THERE, looking (as G K Wenceslas would say) "deep and crisp and even".
When it snows, the black silhouettes of winter trees should be etched in white, iron railings should double their girth and all red post boxes should wear a six-inch high fluffy white hat!
However, if the polar bears of the North don't have sufficient icebergs to sustain life these days, I guess we can't expect proper snow any more down here...
I have just received the following e-mail:
"Where are Buttons' gloves and scarf? And wellies? He must have been a very wet, cold rabbit.
I shall knit him a scarf immediately!
Gill
President of the Keep A Rabbit Dry Society"
BUTTONS replies:
"thank you for your concern, gill, i think i need to join your society as brian and david can be a bit thoughtless at times...
meanwhile, i shall look forward to my scarf; will it be in the society colours and have a badge on it like harry potter's?"
GILL writes:
"Please tell Buttons it will certainly be in the Society's colours and will, of course, have a badge!"
Thank you, Gill. Buttons is, needless to say, a Very Happy Bunny!
Maybe you all live in the wrong place? I woke to find my road (well, too grand a word as it's a close) completely white and all that could be seen of my car was its two wing mirrors sticking out like ears from the complete and very think blanket.
I still had to clear away several inches from the windscreen the following day - but when I got out of the close there was no snow to be seen at all so maybe it was more localised than I had thought.....
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