An unexpected gift

Trees stripped of leaves now boasting this strange new foliage. The tree outside my own bedroom is heavy with the stuff. It looks like cotton, thick and substantial. It’s deceptive. When I put some in my mouth it doesn’t melt so much as disappears. It compacts itself until all’s gone and you’re left puzzling the nothingness of it.

The cars parked on the street have not moved since last night. The only parts that are visible are the tyres, made to seem blacker than usual – blacker than you would imagine possible – contrasted against the white. There are no kids playing in the snow yet but last night there were. Last night they were screaming in the strange, pink dusk throwing ill formed snowballs at each other. Mothers stood in the doorways supervising. Others took photos.

Myself? I have no shame to say. My housemate and I got into a snowfight, the flurries of snow blowing into our faces more effective than any missile we could hastily scramble together in our too cold hands.

Our backyard was beautiful. The evidence of an entire summer, autumn and winter without maintenance was hidden under the snow that blanketed the lawn and toolshed. I sat on garden chairs made furry with the frozen precipitation and took pictures, even while my various body parts froze painfully.

And now, this morning, this Monday morning, the hardest of all mornings to wake up and do what one must – this unexpected gift. Severe disruptions on all train lines the newscaster announced and I grinned. All buses recalled for fear of accidents she said and I danced. By the time the announcement came that all train services were cancelled and no one should leave indoors unless it was an absolute emergency I was back in bed. My friend – a Trini of course – called to assure me that there was no way she was even going to attempt leaving the house. She was back in bed as well.

Hello! And so finally, after more than three years of disappointment, there’s been a genuine, proper snowfall. I’m tempted to type snowstorm, based on the fact that during the night there was thunder and lightning. I don’t know what it is about snow that’s so magical. I can remember standing in a sixth floor window in Victoria and watching the most miserly of snowflakes saunter across the sky. My friend from Australia stood next to me with nose pressed against the glass, willing it to fall harder. The next day, armed in snowboots and the thickest pants I had, I stood waiting for the train in the station, the snow falling heavily around me, and watched as strangers removed their gloves and buried their hands in the stuff, grinning sheepishly at others.

In Austria the snow is so beautiful it’s almost haunting. The cites are clean and the architecture perfect to showcase the loveliness but it’s in the mountains where it’s the most breathtaking.

The evergreens are perfect, the cut logs of firewood are perfect, the ski-slopes are perfect. Everything is perfect and impossibly undisturbed, a picture postcard that you’ve somehow wandered into without realising. The snow can come up to your knees easily on these mountain passes. It’s only when you go back indoors in front a fireplace (if the inn is romantic) or central heating (if it’s not) that you realise how cold you were. Your feet and hands suddenly burn as the blood warms and returns to your extremities.

And finally, finally it’s here. Oh, it’s not the same I know but it’s close enough. Never has London seemed more beautiful, seen from the safety of a warm house and no necessity to leave it. The flakes are thicker now, like the downy feathers of baby birds.

Pretty soon I will have to get up. I’ll have to go make breakfast – chocolate and scrambled eggs I think, something warm and nutritious.

I’ll have to take a shower at some point, removing the protective carapace of thick fleece and fluffy slippers for the sake of cleanliness. And I’ll have to choose which books and movies I’ll be holed up inside with all day, rendered more delicious by how easily this day of enjoyment could not have been.

But most important, at some time I’ll have to bundle up myself in thick stockings, several pairs of socks, pants, boots, two or three jumpers, jacket, coat, scarf, gloves and hat to go outside and be absolutely deliriously happy in the snow. England hasn’t seen this type of weather since 1991. I’m certainly not prepared to wait another 18 years to enjoy it.

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