Snow
SNOW
Blog by Susie Bedford
(Pen name, writing poetry and novels is Lynne Pearl)
Website https:lynnepearl.com
March 23
On March 8th I opened the curtains that morning expecting to see what I usually see, old stone walls, and there it was, snow. So I rushed to the other side of the house to find there was snow on the road up the hill, snow on the hillside in the distance, no longer green, but white topped with black trees. Below me, the cars all had a white covering on the roof and the white washed walls of the long house in front of us, matched the white everywhere else. There were no contrasts, only white and cold. It was precious. I hurried to get ready for the day, we don’t usually have snow in March. In Canada yes, but not here. But we were high up and so we caught the trail of the snow cloud that was dropping silently on the hilltops in Devon, but not on the valleys and fields lower down.
There was snow on the bus shelter, roofs, gardens and it was March. This is the area of the Blackdown hills. There seemed to be only buses about, no cars, so from the top of a double decker riding down into Sidmouth from high on the hills there is a view of the verge that is white. We pass a railway bridge and the railway is picked out in white, straight as a die into the depths of Somerset and Dorset. We climb the hills and all around there is mist on the hills. There is snow and green between trees which are mainly black. Fir trees brush the side of the bus, up over the hills at Farway, we can see the mauve heather shining in amongst the snow.
From up here we can see fields of white, black trees, hedges, fences, stark in the early morning. There is a tunnel of winter wonderland trees. All the trees are adorned in white as if by a paintbrush, the hedges outlined in white. It’s a joy to see such beauty and be awake so early. We stop at the crossroads at the height of the hills, Seaton is one way and Sidmouth another. The pub up here in this desolate spot is the Hare and Hounds, sitting square to the crossroads.
The sky is till white, now there is a beech hedge, rust coloured and then a forest, deep in this winter. Then a surprise, from here we can see that the valley below us is green, sharp as an emerald, the whiteness is only up here. We proceed.
About a quarter of the way down the hillside, made surely by ancient glaciers on their ways to the sea and Jurassic coast, there is no snow, it is all gone, utterly as if the paintbrush had been flung down, and enough is enough says the painter. Altitude only gave us our snow. Late and out of season.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7796332.Lynne_Pearl
www.lynnepearl.com
www.amazon.com Thiel:One Step in front of the Other by Lynne Pearl
