Snow Heroes and Slow Heroes

Red skies in the morning then more snow. Six inches laid on top of six inches - much deeper in drifts. I love the transformative beauty of it - but then I don't have to commute to work or school and the worst that's happened so far is that we're running out of vegetables and we won't be going canoeing anytime soon.




Him outdoors has been Him Indoors for the last week as he's had to write a work report but we've managed to get a walk in most days.

I broke my arm on ice a number of years ago which dented my confidence when walking in wintry conditions  - but now with my Leki stick donated by friends and Yaktrax strapped on my boots, I skip up and down the hills and paths like a Tibetan Yak.
Yaktrax are snow heroes. Perhaps everybody who breaks a bone on snow and ice should get a pair issued on the National Health.  Thinking about it, maybe everybody should get some whether they've broken anything or not. Might save us all a lot of money in the long run.


Then there's the Royal Mail. Thick drifts at the bottom of our path that we hadn't had time to clear and the sound of feet pounding through them and up the path then the letter box clanging. It's great to see the little red van parked on the road and the postman trekking doggedly up and down the snow clogged lanes and paths with his bag over his shoulder.

Sadly the post was only two bills and an advert but still heroic I think - Postman Pat vans and men and women stitching us all together despite the weather and the internet. Every day heroes. Use it or lose it.

The third hero is MSR Newsagents in Ashbourne who have managed to deliver the weekend papers. I know a lot of people access papers online these days but for me, the weekend just isn't the weekend without those thick multi-section papers spread over the breakfast table. I like the serendipity of page turning, finding something unexpected, and anyway, they're good for lighting fires with afterwards. There are no paper shops for miles but a van comes out from Ashbourne and goes round the villages - more feet pounding up our steep path, a heavy clunk through the letter box - lifting the heart.  In really thick snow, as now, the papers are left at a drop off point by the Miners Arms pub. I don't know the name of the man or woman who actually drives the van and delivers the papers - but I'm grateful.  Gritter lorries. Farmers taking feed to the animals in fields. Neighbours clearing paths for neighbours.  All heroes.

Snow slows you down. And here's a thing - stopping work - being 'retired' - getting older - all do the same. I'm trying to work out whether this is a good thing or not. When I was commuting to and from work, looking after children, juggling all the things working parents have to juggle, slowing down looked like paradise - something longed for but never quite achieved.  I know plenty of people living that life now who would love a lot more slowness.

But now, here, for me it's a bit like the snow. Beautiful but possibly deadly. I don't want to carry the metaphor too far but there's a tendancy to drift. The romantic idea of ageing and retirement is that you become more tranquil, more accepting, more . . . well, slow. There is some of that. I look around more. I notice small things, take less for granted.

But the same desire to do something, not to be invisible and irrelevant, to have significance and meaning, still rages and burns. The question that bugs me, is whether I should be fighting the drift or learning to lie back and enjoy it.

Acceptance or resistance? Answers on a postcard, please. Keep the Royal Mail in work.    

How to trash a cottage and survive . . . just!

I promised to be back here again in the Autumn but the horror of the building process plus all the moving out and moving in and packing and unpacking again - followed by the unstoppable juggernaut of Christmas - reduced me to a dust-covered wraith, fit for nothing. Not waving but drowning, as Stevie Smith wrote. Or, as in my case, not blogging but coughing. Not writing but whining. 

There's something particularly nightmarish about house-trashing. Builders take it in their stride - just knock this wall down, chuck out this bath, pile up more stuff on the garden, whey-hey, lets make a big heap of rubble! I hope these two photographs convey something of the existential dread I felt when I took them - direct evidence of impermanence - how easily things fall apart.  Of course I chose all this - along with Him Outdoors. We made it happen, so have only each other to blame, and on bad days, we did just that. Whose idea was this? Yours. No, yours. Another perk of married life.  

My more positive-thinking friends remind me that life, even the difficult part, is about learning. Preparation maybe for some final exam? My trouble is that I seem to learn painful truths only after the event - in this case that I don't like DIY and am no good at it, that packing and unpacking is horrible, that mess and clutter make me edgy, that planning processes are labyrinthine and stressful, and that if you move house and start on a building project you get all of the above and more. I kind of knew this before, but now I really know it. A new neural pathway is gouged deeply into my brain. It says NEVER AGAIN. Too late    

Of course, as other cheery-up friends and family say, it'll all be worth it when it's done. I've not reached worth-it yet but it is looking better. The builders have left, we are back in the house and the new extension gives us a lot more space and light. H.O.'s garden workshop is nearly built, the kitchen is modern and easy, most of the rubble heaps have gone.  I've just planted two apple trees and spring will probably come.

Happy New Year!