Winter Wonderland
29 December
I don't know why I woke up so early on Thursday morning but I did. 7am. I was still working on work time or some such thing. Anyhow, I know I wasn't going to get back to sleep. So, I got out of bed, opened the curtains and...
Oh, my God, the world had gone white overnight. Snow, deep luscious snow, that I hadn't seen in many years and certainly not during the life span of this Journal.
So, the character of the day changed immediately. Instead of driving round to perform a couple of chores like a bit of shopping, post a couple of letters and return videos to the video shop, I walked. Or rather I trudged. Thankful for the workman's boots I bought some years ago and wear about three times a year, thankful for the thermals I bought some years ago also, thankful for the fleecy garment, extra gloves and thick woollen scarf my parents bought me for Christmas.
It was not the day for skimping on the layers of clothing. A deep, hard frost had set in so that where the snow had been packed down on the roads and pavements it had then frozen into a glassy surface. Cars waltzed at every junction. I heard two minor crashes in the space of 400 metres.
But it was beautiful. The park nearby glistened. The snow (early on anyway) was fresh and untrodden. I could have been the first person on the earth to walk that route.
Even my back garden and the gardens behind me looked like something out of Dr Zhivago. However, snow is always a good test of loft insulation. Poor insulation; heats rises from the house; underside of roof is warmed; snow on roof melts. The snow on my roof did not melt. Heaven knows why. I didn't think that my loft insulation was up to much but it is obviously doing some sort of a job.
Anyhow, it was certainly not a day for roaming far so I snuggled up in front of the television and found immediately that there was really nothing on any of the channels that I wanted to watch. So, I alternated between digital channels 25 and 26 and listened to Radios 3 and 4 whilst I read and relaxed.
By the morning, things were a little brighter. So much so that a small thaw had set in wherever the sunshine fell on the snow. Whilst in the shade, everything froze.
And icicles hung by my wall and milk would have come frozen home in the pail
if it had been foolish enough to travel that way. I blew into my hands to keep
them warm much like Dick, the shepherd (It's a quote not a party game, by the
way 
).
However, I couldn't hang about. I was due to travel by train to London. I'll kill the suspense by telling you that I arrived safely and that the journey took about seven hours. But then I travelled preparedly in the sure knowledge that there would be problems. I dressed warm and packed some provisions. And I was thankful of both as the heating in the carriage ceased for the last 90 minutes of the journey and the service from the buffet car was spasmodic. Most people, like me, had prepared for the worst and shouldered the discomforts with the spirit of the Blitz. Those who complained tended to be those who made no contingency plans.
So, it was a bitch of a journey. The compensation was the views. Sun on snow clad slopes. Trees in full harlequinade black and white with snow plastered to the upwind side of their trunks. Then mist and fog with sun. Strange shapes looming. Trees rearing out of the shimmering albino air only to plunge back into the pearly depths. I sat entranced for the first couple of hours of the journey watching in awe the strangeness of familiar landscapes.
And I was transported back in time some 18 months to 18 March 1999 and my visit to the Yerba Buena Centre for the Arts in San Francisco for an exhibition of Impressionist paintings entitled Impressions in Winter: Effets de Neige. And I realised just how accurate those daubs of paint were in summoning up that quality of light.
By the time I arrived at Ross's, I was completely knacked. Food. Bed. Sleep. A night devoid of adult content.