After some weeks of steady snowfall, the past 10 days or so have seen little added to the mountains of white in the garden but temperatures have been down in the ice cellar. Only in the past day or so did they rise above minus 10C and then only to six below zero. Today it is once again below minus 10.
The effect on Embach appears to be exactly zero: people going about their daily lives as usual, schoolchildren waiting for the school bus in the early morning, parents driving to work, holidaymakers skiing, enjoying the cross-country circuit and joining ski classes. Life goes on uninterrupted, bordered by vertical walls of ice along the roads, and great piles of snow left by Pauli and his snow plough.
 |
| Nestling under thick white duvets |
There are however minor irritations of such a cold snap: just the dressing and undressing each time we want to go outside as it takes time to put on boots and socks, hat, scarf, gloves, jumper and jacket. Then on coming in, the process goes into reverse with the added aggravation of steamed up spectacles. There is the frequent necessity for nose blowing, the contents of the compost bin, uncovered from under two metres of snow, are frozen, the car is a terrible mess and can’t be washed because the water would freeze (this could be seen as a benefit), the birds have already chomped their way through 40kg of sunflower seeds and so on.
But would we want it any other way? No, of course not! Winter is a magical time especially at these temperatures. The landscape twinkles in the sunlight, the air is crisp and the snow groans and crunches underfoot, the tracks in the garden reveal the myriad of night time visitors, the houses nestle under thick, fluffy white duvets and when it snows, tiny glistening crystals fall gently dusting the snow with a fresh powdery coat.
Embach is especially beautiful at this time – but then, I say that at every season.
 |
| The roads are bordered with walls of ice and snow |
No comments:
Post a Comment