Christmas snow

What a bonus! Perfect snow too. It arrived mid-afternoon one day after Christmas in a fine mist of tiny flakes, which got thicker and more intense. For about an hour they drifted down, gentle but steady. This would have been worrying, but it was coming from the west and predicted to get no farther east – so our daughter and her fiancé driving to London were going away from it.

By sunset we had a good inch of it (a lot for a county on the southernmost edge of England). It took only a moment to liberate the sledge from its hibernation in a junk room, and trek up the small hill in our field behind the house. It’s a  lovely Scandanavian wood sledge with metal edges to the runners. We have so little snow down here that it stood as a television stand for many years!

Out in the twilight snow our two sheep looked somewhat bemused to find their peace disturbed by five enthusiastic adults, and they stood together at a safe distance, away in a corner of their field.

The scene looked exactly like a Christmas card, but I was too busy enjoying it to go back to the house to get the camera and struggle to capture the luminous quality of the moment. Just enjoy it and paint it into memory. There was enough reflected light in the sky to sledge by, but everything was painted from the blue palette. Looking down from the top of the run to the person trudging back with the sledge, I could see the light from  windows glowing orange. It was very comforting to see our house  look so welcoming, and know that a fire was burning warm in the wood stove, and the tree lights were twinkling. Back to warm spiced apple juice!

By morning the snow had turned to rain, and the fairytale scene had gone. I was so glad we seized the moment.  Ichi go, ichi e as the Japanese say.