Sunshine and Snow

Now that the weather has turned more spring-like, this day, two weeks ago, seems a little surreal. Did we really have snow? Well, yes, we did, over the Mother's Day weekend, but it seems a lifetime ago given how the landscape has changed again since. 

It was the first proper snow of the winter, which I had feared would remain essentially snow-less. How times have changed over the years we have lived here. We would get snow every winter 10 years or so ago, but still never in the way it used to be in earlier decades when the villages and towns of the High Peak would be cut off and the snow so deep that it rose above the dry stone walls and people would ski over it's pale virgin expanses. 

A great sadness to me is that those days are long gone.  I adore the mountains, skiing, and everything that the white stuff brings - cold, bright light; fresh tingling air; a new stillness; footprints.  The other Monday - while we were hardly knee deep in the stuff -  was nevertheless a small reminder of how transformational such days can be. Going back inside the house, for once, was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. I could have stayed out there forever.

Below is what I captured that day...

Monday 7th March

Today was simply exquisite: bright sunshine bursting out of a cloudless blue sky and bouncing back light from streams of melting snow and fields of frozen white. Hardly a breath of wind stirred the sharp cold air and the sound of sheep and birdsong filled my wool-clad ears. Indeed it was a day when all the senses sang and the spirit soared in sheer life-affirming joy. I do not exaggerate. It was truly so.