The only people still cheerful about snow out here are kids and big kids like me. We’ve had a strong blast of cold air straight from Russia and Scandinavia hitting the east of the country and dumping up to ten inches of snow on counties that are really not used to the white stuff. I’m chuffed, because I don’t have to get up at silly o’clock and drive seventy-five miles to work every day, so I can get up when I feel like it and go out to take photos and make snowmen. I’m hearing the other side of the story now.
White van sliding into someone’s parked car early this morning and driving off (caught on CCTV, luckily). Bus skidding sideways down a hill. Vaccination centres and schools closed. A fierce debate on our village FB page about sledging versus lockdown rules, with a lot of abuse slung on each side. I’m staying firmly on my own grounds until everyone else has dispersed back to their normal lives.
It’s been snowing overnight, hard enough to settle on the roof and grass, and it’s been snowing lightly but steadily all day. The temperature’s dropped and is now around -3o C. We spent this afternoon feeding the birds and shaking about 10cm of snow off the fleeces over the kale and winter onions.
Then we retreated indoors. He dozed, while I formatted the short story I’d been writing and sent it off to the magazine. I spent a few minutes working out how to explain the term Essex girl to an American magazine before running a quick search online – for them, it’s a Jersey girl. Willing to bet there’s an equivalent derogatory term for supposedly loose women in every nation. Depressing thought.
I’m working out the grumpiness at that by writing out another story, a cyberpunk version of a traditional fairy tale that suddenly sounded so obvious to me this afternoon that I’m writing it out quick before someone else nabs it.
Hope the weather and the inspiration strike together for years to come.
Julia Chalkley 