Even our sunny Burgenland got a steady dollop of snow yesterday.
Before you really see the snow you get to hear about it. One of our neighbours told us as early as Monday about the heavy snow fall expected on Friday. Fair enough, he was almost spot on give and take a day or so.
Snow tends to sneak up on us and only when you turn your head this way and that way do you differentiate between a raindrop and a snowflake. Within an hour, those tiny flakes transform the mundane winter landscape into a picturesque landscape that would have been a perfect postcard image.
In the two hours that I was out visiting someone, my car was camouflaged by a few inches of snow and I now see the point of having a car with a garishly bright colour. Our subtle grey tends to make it an unwitting target for the snow plows. They just don't see it.
Driving back home was a lesson in bravery for me. The road hadn't been plowed yet and our driveway had yet to be shovelled. To get our car back into its bay I had to clear the snow off our driveway first. Two tries beforehand had my heart beating faster as halfway up the driveway, the wheels started to strike and refused to go further making me a passenger in a backwards sliding car.
Even though this might seem annoying, a heavy snow fall is a magical sight. The snow is a brilliant shade of white and even Bob, while he was standing at the window, was hypnotized by the divine spectacle of thousands of snowflakes falling from above in seemingly random patterns.
Mid afternoon, I decided to walk to the other side of our village to see if an elderly lady had enough heating, milk and so forth. The snowplow still hadn't done its rounds and it made it easier to walk. Snow does have traction and grip, however an exuberance on my part had me connect my derriere to the ground rather smartly. As it was right in front of a window the only part of me that got hurt was my pride.
Now for the pleasant bit. When it snows all day long, one might think to wait until it stops before you climb into a warm outfit and run your shovel up and down the driveway. But no, it needs to be done a few times in between. It is jolly hard work, because it tends to freeze your fingers into a state of numbness.
Walking around my neighbourhood yesterday afternoon was rather nice and cozy. Almost every driveway and sidewalk was a hive of activity and as everyone likes to take a break and shoot the breeze, it was a delightful walk home filled with mini-conversations. Naturally the snow featured heavily in it, but on the whole it tended to have the smooth edges of a well balanced conversation.
One of my pit stops was outside Ferry's house. He is one those fabulous village characters, one who rides around the village on his motorized lawnmower and is always seen sporting a pair of original ( eh, bought back in the 70's perhaps? ) aviator Rayban sunglasses. As he is into his seventieth decade and still chops wood each and every day in the forest, I have a lot of respect and admiration for him.
We chatted for quite some time and were interrupted a few times, firstly by a quizzical neighbour driving past at snail speed and stopping in the road to ask what we were talking about and secondly, by another neighbour who had a mini motorized snowplow. A snowplow that he wasn't going to stop for us and if we hadn't jumped off the sidewalk ( and into one of those big pile of snow that collects next to a main road ) we would have been snow plow fodder...
Village life is this B's knees!
Biggi
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