They said it would snow today… but I didn’t believe ‘them’.
We are having groundworks done for the new shed which has to go up so that we can have an office in the garden and the rooms in the house can be rearranged so that Pops has a place as a base when she gives up the flat later this year.
The lovely men doing the groundworks arrived bright and early and set to digging out the frozen soil – valiant and hard workers for sure.
For my part, I settled myself down to my usual yoga class for Sunday morning. I put the mat out, cleaned it (they dug), I found the Svasana blanket and put it over the bit of the floor that has a hot pipe running under it (they dug). I found my block and bricks and set them out near to me in case they were needed (they dug). I found my ipad and balanced it where I could see the teacher and she could see me well enough to spot if I was going off track and gently bring me back to alignment (they dug). With a bish bash bosh we were off with our yoga class through some breathing work (they dug), some sitting poses, some twists and stretches, some new postures and ideas, some familiar postures and ideas (they dug). After an hour of up and down , standing, sitting, lying we went for our final posture (they were still digging – did I mention that?) – the lovely Svasana ahhhhhh a moment of resting and absorbing the gentle lessons we had gone through – (they were digging – quite hot now I think…)
THEN………… I opened my eyes and stood up and WOWEE- enormous snow flakes were falling and the sky was completely white- the air was still and everythind had become silent – it was the most glorious moment, recalling all the days in the past when it had started snowing and my mind was flooded with the memories of playing snowball fights with Bru when I was still tiny small, Bru teaching me to ride a tobagon – days in the field at Weigall Road, days in the field on Winney Hill, days striding across the common in deep snow, days in Bru’s red Spitfire on the motorway back from Farlowe. Thoughts and images pressing in on each other with a flood of emotions following – lovely happy days and some sad ones when dad was ill and we walked across snowy roads to see him – Simon and me from one direction and Bru from another… memories of showing snow to Poppy for the first time, of seeing it in Suffolk in that run up to Christmas when Margot lent us her cottage for a couple of nights and all the fields around were blanketed in white. Ahhh lovely immersion in a myriad of thoughts and feelings – fabulous..
and- guess what? THEY CARRIED ON DIGGING……..covered in snow and the earth cold cold cold, they pressed on valiantly and hard working.. what amazing men eh?
Musings of a middle aged dog walker 