Snowy and sunlit anthills, with ash trees My high Arctic wellingtons rarely have an outing. With a red neoprene lining they’re made for extreme weather from Siberia, for snow and sub-zero. Thick winter socks fit snugly, the outer pair knee-high so my feet are cosy. Cumbersome giant feet.
Ski-mitts are warm but unwieldy. Hat and hood keep me warm until I turn toward home, into the east wind, into a blizzard! Snowscapes have a transient beauty and the challenge is to capture the essence of the day in word and image.
Ski-mitts are warm but unwieldy. Hat and hood keep me warm until I turn toward home, into the east wind, into a blizzard! Snowscapes have a transient beauty and the challenge is to capture the essence of the day in word and image.
The blizzard struck as I went through the kissing-gate and toward the escarpment. The wind caught up powder snow in gusts and scoured the ground down to ice. Visibility was so poor there would be no view from the escarpment and the wind was wild, so I turned back. What a blast! No wonder those Scout Scar ash are stunted. Battling a head-wind, I fought my way to the shelter of the wall and the kissing-gate where a wintry sun gleamed through the blizzard. Prepare yourself. Pulling up a soft hood beneath the hood of my waterproof, I didn't realise that my warm hat (third layer of headgear) was now dislodged and loose on a cord about my neck. Binoculars and camera straps entangled with a walking pole and tried to garrotte me as I battled the blizzard ripping into my hoods. A head-wind: targeting the head. Garrotting is a risk in wild weather if I do not clear straps from about my neck in time. The wind howled through chinks in the wall, through the kissing-gate. I set off downhill, breathing hotly into my third hat and using it as a face-mask because I feared flesh might freeze. Battling the blast I lost my sense of pace so I couldn't tell how far I'd gone and landmarks were invisible. Disorientated on my home patch! Contours, rely on contours. Glimpses of sun gave rare photo opportunities I couldn't resist but my fingers were so cold it felt dangerous to expose them. Ski-mitts are cosy but cumbersome so off they come and I'm picking them out of the snow! Wrong choice. The snow was rippled by the wind, a hawthorn seemed to rise from a protective shell grown around its foot. Powder snow blew in gusts about my feet, into drifts and sculptures. The wind made visible. It was thrilling in the full Anglo-Saxon sense of the word, piercingly beautiful and brutal. A sense of solitude and the sublimity of nature. I shared my emergency rations with a robin who seemed to ask for sustenance.
My outward-bound footsteps were obliterated by the blizzard. I saw no one until I came to the Race Course where I met Roger who told me tales of his days with the Mountain Rescue in the 1960s as we headed home.
My outward-bound footsteps were obliterated by the blizzard. I saw no one until I came to the Race Course where I met Roger who told me tales of his days with the Mountain Rescue in the 1960s as we headed home.
Reaching my doorstep, I pushed a heel against the step to free my foot from wellington. The second one was unyielding, thick socks wedged tightly in wellie. I needed a boot-jack but winters aren't what they once were and who has a boot-jack nowadays? I could ask the kids sledging down the road for help. In one trainer and one high Arctic wellington I rang my neighbour Angela's doorbell. Blobs of snow fell off me onto her hall floor as she welcomed me in. She sat me on a chair and pulled and tugged to free me. Then we sat by her kitchen window having coffee and watching kids on their sledges. I went home through the snow in a trainer and one of her husband's shoes, clutching a tall wellington.
It felt venturesome out there today, and fun. For some, not for the emergency services who were at full stretch. Wednesday 28 February was a blast.
Thursday 1 March, St David's Day. If there are daffodils they're hidden under a blanket of snow. The wind is even stronger, the wind-chill effect commensurate. The coldest March day ever recorded in the UK. The front yard has been swept more effectively by eddies and gusts of wind than any hereabouts. Pavements are wind-scoured, down to ice. And treacherous. The road has attracted a boy racer on something like a quad bike. The sun does not appear until lunch time.
The east wind wrecks my best efforts with a bird feeder, setting it swinging so violently that it spills seed over the yard and is soon empty. Two male blackbirds fight for territorial rights and see off smaller birds that flit through shrubs but the wind is too rough for them to land on a feeder. How will wildlife fare in all this? Including the fox whose secret visits to the garden are revealed by the snow. And where are the bull finch who used to visit? The siskin, green finch, coal tits and long-tails, where are they?
It felt venturesome out there today, and fun. For some, not for the emergency services who were at full stretch. Wednesday 28 February was a blast.
Thursday 1 March, St David's Day. If there are daffodils they're hidden under a blanket of snow. The wind is even stronger, the wind-chill effect commensurate. The coldest March day ever recorded in the UK. The front yard has been swept more effectively by eddies and gusts of wind than any hereabouts. Pavements are wind-scoured, down to ice. And treacherous. The road has attracted a boy racer on something like a quad bike. The sun does not appear until lunch time.
The east wind wrecks my best efforts with a bird feeder, setting it swinging so violently that it spills seed over the yard and is soon empty. Two male blackbirds fight for territorial rights and see off smaller birds that flit through shrubs but the wind is too rough for them to land on a feeder. How will wildlife fare in all this? Including the fox whose secret visits to the garden are revealed by the snow. And where are the bull finch who used to visit? The siskin, green finch, coal tits and long-tails, where are they?
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