Snow watch…
in waiting for silence.
Hello again, welcome to you all warmly, I am delighted to know you’re here. It means the world.
I’m on snow watch today, I will be writing these words between countless obsessive dashes to the window whilst waiting, impatiently, for the first flakes of snow to fall and praying that neither the weather gods nor the meteorology gods are mistaken, its too often the case on my hill.
If I am fortunate, tomorrow morning I will be woken by an eerie, soft glow on the bedroom walls, foretelling in a nanosecond of a silence only deep snow can carry. If luck has deserted me, a few half hearted hard, icy balls will fall, melt the moment they touch the ground, it will last just long enough for hope to ignite and stop.
The thought of snow though… its enough!
“They watched the snow fall and fall and fall until they thought that they were the ones falling.”
― Ann Patchett
Bitterly cold days have settled over France this week, a biting, slice off your cheeks, nose numbing, finger burning, north easterly wind has blown in. And, with it, a chance of snow. As I begin to write this letter there are two snowflakes on two consecutive days showing on my weather app. I check they don’t change to rain drops with uncontrollably regular, childlike excitement.
They are enough, they carry hope.
I know many people who do not share my obsession for a love of snow. It can be tricky, deceptive in its beauty, temptingly dangerous. However, despite all hardships, I still love to see snow falling. The dance of winter; swirling skirts of confetti flakes, whipped into frenzied couplings by the wind, then settling daintily with so many others on every waiting expanse. Every visible facet an original, silent transition, the landscape magically remodeled, nostalgic.
As a child snow meant walking a mile to the sledging field in the village of Balcombe where I grew up, where I knew all my school friends would also be, where we would spend our winter hours with red noses and rosy cheeks, wet jeans and frozen toes in rubber boots (there was no fashion code back then) trudging, knee deep in snow up the hill and sledging back down over and over again on anything at all that was slippery enough to glide over the snow—old grain bags from the farm made excellent makeshift sledges; we didn’t care that we would return with bruised coccyx’, crying from the pain of being frozen. They were hours we waited for every year.
As a young adult when living in Derbyshire, I fell in love with the mystery of snow shapes in the High Peaks, at the same time, also, with a beautiful young man who I spent many days and weeks over one winter in romantic flaky conversation whilst taking long walks through deep, wind sculpted drifts and pristine, sleek white slopes and after returning to my tiny cabin, sharing hot toddies and massaging tingling toes through thick woolly socks. Both left lasting impressions.
It snowed every winter then, every one holding silent memories.
Snow, unlike any other weather, has the ability to hold me spellbound for hours. I do not deny being equally as so at the sight of sunbeams dancing through a misty spring morning, or even a spider spinning its silken web also but such beauty is dispersed, too hurriedly into day or night. Snow days are obliterate. Snow days change everything into elegant magical scenery, devoid of the slightest sound.
Silence beckons.
However, not so often do I hear its beckoning in this westerly area of the Aveyron (dept 12). Caught between the subtropical climate of the Mediterranean and the cooler mountainous climate of the Massifs, it is protected by the accompanying mild and prevailing winds from the West. Snowfall of any description is rare, fleeting and sadly I can count on one hand the small number of snow days we’ve been blessed with since we arrived.
During our first winter living in France we experienced snowfall of almost 1 m in less than 124 hours. As we left the restaurant in Cransac, where we had eaten a farewell meal with a friend from 2Ireland, small flakes of snow began to fall. It was almost midnight and Rosie, then only 7 years old, exhausted by her grownup evening, whispered sleepily—I hope it snows all night Mummy! And so it did, blizzard conditions continuing for most of the following day too. We had never seen so much snow. Interestingly, neither had any of the local villagers who, unlike we three, for the most part tucked themselves away in the warmth of their homes and stayed cosy and safe until it was gone. Which—as we discovered while traipsing exhausted back to our home from the village with blinding swirls of heavy flakes stinging our faces and sneaking in to every gap in our clothing—was a very wise decision. Rosie, bless her young soul, thought she would never be warm again!
Be careful what you wish for sweet child of mine…
When Seth was just a toddler, six years later, it snowed again. This time more gently, silence remained for five days of sledging, snowball fights and snowman building, reminiscent of childhood joys in the fluffy soft snow of books and poems, hot chocolate—a dash of brandy added for some—and cookies waiting. A delightful interlude of silent white, with a splash of coal eyes and a carrot nose, an old stripy, hand knitted scarf caught in white wind.
Five years ago, just a few minutes after opening the kitchen shutters, snowflakes began to fall. Huge, soft powdery flakes, the type that stick to every surface they touch. The type that enchants you, hypnotic, mesmerising. The type that excites every child living where snowfall is rare. In barely the time it took me to walk from bedroom to kitchen, the landscape transformed, bland winter greys and muddy browns to pristine virgin white, magical, enchanting, silent…
It was Christmas Day - a gift which lasted but a few hours, precious nonetheless.
And, only once since then has there been a day of snow worthy of words. A class day for which I was very late because much as I love to see the landscape transformed into a silent white world, I prefer the roads to remain at least intermittently, audibly visible, to have my tyres on the ground rather than rubber slipping and sliding off into the voids that line the lane. As tardy as I was, the drive was interesting. I arrived at college full of apologies to find that not only were more than half the students missing but most of the staff also. Lessons were cancelled for the day so, amongst those of us that had managed to navigate our way to classes safely it was decided that we would take advantage of the now sparkling, sunny day and walk. Five teachers and thirty-eight students released from normal regulations and rules was probably the noisiest nature walk I have ever taken… and will never forget.
Since beginning to write this a few flakes of snow fell from a heavy sky, for a few minutes the steps up to the door looked like salt had been shaken over each one.
Hope raised…
Now, predictably but oh so disappointingly, my weather app snow symbols are already replaced by rain and as I check again, ice has turned to water.
Hope dashed…
There is time yet though.
Hope eternal…
With love
I found this exquisite piece of prose by David Knowles
to share with you. I can’t stop hearing his words, “try to be small”.
Incredibly, with the exception of the huge filthy piles scraped by snow ploughs and tractors which lined the roads, every trace disappeared overnight. The following day, was if the blizzards had never happened.
Our friend was due to catch a flight home from Toulouse the following day, unbelievably he managed to find his way to the autoroute where he hitched a lift with a truck driver carrying a cargo of fish, on returning home it took days to rid himself of the smell.
Thank you for your kindness and encouragement to a new writer, Susie. I'll go on doing my best.
As a child of Africa, I am enchanted by snow, and I wish for it every winter, now that I'm in the UK. But sadly, where I live it is a sporadic occurrence. Apparently it does snow on the IOW occasionally! I completely get your excitement!