Damn Snow!

I really don’t understand what people like about snow. We had a rather large amount of the stuff overnight and through today. There was a bit of a lull around lunchtime, so I went out and cleared all the paths again. Second time in three days. One of the reasons I do that is the fact that my disabled neighbour has three carers a day, and I feel a certain obligation to do for him what he can’t do for himself. A reason that’s more pressing to me, however, is that I’m nearly out of coal and the coalman won’t carry hundredweight sacks of the stuff up a sloping path if it’s slippery. Can’t blame him for that, of course, but I do need the fuel while it’s this cold.

Then there’s the poor birds. They’ve been going frantic all day because the food I put out for them gets covered by the damn snow within minutes. So I’ve been going back and forth trying to make the food available, and every time I do I bring pools of dirty wet stuff into the house on my shoes. My kitchen floor is disgusting.

That strikes me as one of the ironies about snow. It looks so pristine when it’s lying on open landscapes or decorating the tree branches, but wherever it ingratiates its pointless presence onto areas of human habitation, it ends up producing filth one way or another.

And I haven’t mentioned worrying about the integrity of old roofs if the snow is being driven on even a moderate wind. Or the problem of going out on the roads. The narrow, winding lanes where I live are very pleasant to walk on in decent weather, but they’re no fun when they’re covered with snow that has become compacted and turned to ice. They don’t get gritted because they’re not classified.

We’ve had more snow these past three days than at any time since I moved to Derbyshire eight years ago. I don’t like the stuff one bit. The only thing that can be said for it is that it looks pretty. So, I expect, did Lucretia Borgia.