Snow Senses

Happy New Year!

In winter I like to give my senses a bit of an airing, I mean really focus on each of them, not just sight. I shut my eyes and sniff and taste and touch.  Being out in the snow is generally not an olfactory experience but if I try hard enough, there's always something to make my nostrils twitch. 

 

Sounds:  

The chacker-chack-chack of fieldfares in wind-bent hawthorn, 
the crunch of footsteps in ice-crusted snow,
the heavy kronk of a tumbling raven,
the pebble-tapping clicks of a stonechat.

Smells: 

Wood smoke from the chimneys of thick-walled miner’s cottages,
sweet, wet hay scattered for foraging sheep and ponies.

Touch: 

The prickle of gorse when I try to pull myself up a steep slope for the best coffee stop view,
the hot plastic cup from my flask warming my hands,
sticky cake crumbs on my lips,
icy wind against my cheeks.

Taste: 

Hot, sweet coffee,
chocolate cake,
a lemon-ice taste in my mouth from a gulp of mountain air.

Sights: 

 

Black raven in a blue sky, sheep splashed with either red or purple paint, one lamb or two?
Yellow gorse flowers shining on the hillside,
watery-orange sun slipping below the whale-back-mound of Moel Arthur. 
  

                                       
                        

Earth Hour

We switched off our lights and went for a walk during Earth Hour last night (8.30pm).  Snow had drifted to the height of the hedges and trees had white stripes on the exposed side of their trunks.  John's sheep were huddled in the gateway I normally lean on to view Moel Fammau.  Their eyes shone in the snow-light.  Even without a moon, we didn't need a torch to see our way.  No traffic moved.  The world was silent apart from the whistle of wind. We felt the sting of blown snow on our cheeks.  Branches of trees lolled on the ground, weighted down by layers of snow.  I wondered if they'd snap.  I saw myself going around with a big stick, liberating all the branches, like the nurse who cut off my plaster cast when I was small and made my thin white arm feel light and free again. 

When we got back home, we lit candles for the remaining 25 minutes and sat in silence, even though we really, really wanted to make a cup of tea.  The silence made my ears pop and I would swear I heard the earth around our house sigh for the relief of just an hours rest.  My ears, their tiny tubes, canals and delicate bones seemed to sigh too for their short rest.