let it snow

listening to five live yesterday and today, you'd think that the whole country was 6feet under a heavy blanket of snow. this may be true for some parts of the country (well not 6feet, but 6inches), but up here in York it's been a bit of an anti-climax. my promises to the kids about their first snow in nearly two years (we thankfully spent last winter in new zealand) were ill-advised as nothing was to be seen first thing this morning.

then, at about 11am we finally had a flurry followed by something a bit heavier, rounded off my a whole load of nothing more, the snow soon to disappear. lucky then that i had my camera with me to record the excitement...

not very snowy york

all this gives me yet another excuse to air a related poem from the distant past (in this case 1992) and wonderful memories of my lazy student days in Sheffield.

December Again

December again,
And everyone waits
As the sky turns grey.
Where did the nights go to?

Well on the way -
Afternoons in the dark.
Underneath naked trees
The river stood still.

But all I could think of
Was the mountain-high hill
Where we tumbled and played
In the snow, thick and white

Again and again...
Slipping away from me now.

I hope that it comes
In thick sheets of snow.
December again.


November 1992

that year i was treated - at the age of 22 - to my first experience of 'bin-bagging' on the slopes of endcliffe park. far from being the perverse practice it sounds like, it in fact involved sitting on/in a blag bin-bag and hurtling down a hill as fast as possible. luckily the tree stump halted my descent as the ice-laden river waited expectantly mere inches away...