It snowed here on Friday. And Saturday too. Proper snow, like fat feathers falling from the sky, swirling around and settling on trees and pavements and rooftops. The schools didn’t close and life continued pretty much as usual, but it snowed.
I love snow. If you’ve ever watched the Gilmore Girls, you’ll know that Lorelei Gilmore can sense when the first snow is coming. She smiles in anticipation, hugging herself as she says ‘I can smell snow,’ like it’s some wonderful gift she’s about to be given. I feel the same way about it, though I don’t quite have the same snow sense as she does. Snow is soft and, when it falls, if the wind is just right, you can stand there and watch it float and dance around you like specks of magic. I don’t feel the same way about rain at all. You can’t make rain angels.
I lived in Ontario for many years and it only takes stepping on a frozen puddle and hearing it crack to take me back to the first winter we lived there, when the temperature dropped well below zero and snow was piled so high at the end of the driveway we dug into it and made a snow cave. I remember the novelty of heavy boots and all-in-one snowsuits, of ice skating on a frozen pond, tobogganing at night and putting on my cross country skis to ski around my neighbourhood. I remember sitting in the kitchen with my brother listening to the radio, waiting to hear whether school was closed and we had a snow day. I also remember being at work one day and coming out to find my car almost completely buried in snow, and another day where I’d left the window slightly open and ended up with a snowdrift on the back seat.
I met my husband at the snow. Both of us working at a ski resort, the violet lit slopes and winter cold a perfect backdrop to romance. And so when the clouds gather and the first flakes start to fall I’m taken back. To a time as a child when snow seemed to last forever, lit with fairy lights. To a time when my life changed in wonderful ways. Oh, I know snow gets dirty and slushy and tedious after a while, but there is wonder in the first fresh fall, the glitter of light and the unique beauty in each and every snowflake.
I hope it snows again soon.
If you enjoyed this post and want to read more, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.
Helen Glynn Jones 
There is something utterly magical about snow… even if it does paralyse the nation with a few flakes 🙂
Yes, I love it! Don’t know why it sends people into such a tizzy 😊
So do I, though I’d rather not have to drive too far in it. 🙂
Reblogged this on O LADO ESCURO DA LUA.
Thank you for sharing 😊
Fat snow is the best snow! 😀
It is! 😀❄️
I totally can get behind snow that doesn’t close the schools 🙂
Yes, definitely! They close schools here when it’s just snowy, rather than snowing, as we found out when we showed up one day. 😀❄️ If they did that in Canada, no one would go to school between November and April!
I love snow too, although for me it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure as I’m not the one who does the shovelling in this family!
Yes, that’s the downside of it. We don’t really get enough here to have to shovel, but I remember it when we lived in Canada ❄️😀
We don’t get tons here (nothing like the prairies or Eastern Canada), but we have a steep driveway. No shovelling, no going out. 🙂
What a great post. So much feeling and atmosphere in this one.
Thanks, Craig 😊
yer big soppy…
yeah… 😉
Reblogged this on Stuart France.
Thanks so much for sharing, Stuart!
Snow is earth’s very own magic, that’s for sure. Living in Oz, we don’t get to see it very often, but I used to see it at least once a year when we lived in Tasmania and made a pilgrimage to the highlands—it was so exciting, no matter how frozen our hands! Our kids, having grown up in hot and sunny Western Australia, had never seen it until we went to England a few years’ ago. It was the highlight of their trip! We have photos of them building snowmen and kicking snow ‘footballs’ outside of Shakespeare’s house in Stratford—paying no attention to the historic monument beside them, of course!
I love how much Australians are taken by snow 🙂 Completely natural, of course, as it’s not really encountered outside the high country. I remember being in Switzerland with a group of Aussies who’d never seen snow before and they went mad for it, running around and playing – and these were grown men! So no wonder your kids were so distracted by it 😀 Earth’s own magic is a lovely way to describe it, definitely – I think it’s the way it completely transforms everything. Nothing else we have can do that so quickly, and that’s part of the magic.
I am just completely jealous reading about all this snow. It is hot here in Southern Africa although we are getting lots more rain than last year, thank goodness. Lovely post and photographs.
Thanks so much – I’m a bit jealous of your hot weather 😀 Glad to hear you’re getting more rain, especially if you need it. It’s one thing that’s never in short supply in this country.
Yes, before it gets all slushy and dirty, snow is beautiful. White, sparkling magic. (Love your reference to Lorelei. I’ve always loved her ability to smell snow.) 😉
Ah, I love meeting fellow GG aficionados! I love that too – it’s like she’s thinking of the most wonderful thing when she smells snow. And white sparkling magic? The perfect way to describe it 🙂
It is such a fabulous gift of Lorelei’s, they worked it into the new “seasons”. 🙂 Of course they did. How could they not?
I know! I think I might have ‘squee’d’ a little when they did that 🙂
I did. 😀