The remains of the snow
After waking from a strangely vivid dream in the early hours of the morning, the murmurs of little people eventually forced me to look at the alarm clock, and fall out of bed to get ready for work. While the rest of the house had a snow day, I threw on warm clothes and set out into the surrounding world of snow and ice.
The twenty minute ride to work took over half an hour. Some stretches were clear, others were sheet ice, and others were hard frozen snow – perhaps the most dangerous; causing the bike to snap sideways beneath me with little or no warning.
After finding excuses during the day to play with the new coffee machine in the kitchen at work, the journey home was made rather more eventful (and dangerous) by forgetting to pick up the headlight for my bike. After my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I played a fraught game on the mile of towpath towards town of keeping the bike within the apparently thawed tyre-width dark line in the ice and snow. Once in town, the lack of lights forced me to dismount and walk – quite comedically at times; slithering around more than I had on the bike.
Although the snow is melting, I'm not relishing the coming days – the forecast doesn't show temperatures climbing above freezing for at least the next two weeks.