A Dickensian Christmas

Except it isn’t Christmas anymore, is it. Mother Nature, however, thought otherwise and sent England a ton of snow this past week (a ‘ton’ being relative, of course). I took these photos while walking the dog at various times over the past week.

I’ve never seen hoar frost before, not like this. We have frost in Canada, but the humidity of this island creates something marvelous. Hoar frost with snow is hauntingly beautiful.

My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.
– George R.R. Martin

The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak,
and the Frost painted all the trees silver.
… and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.
– Oscar Wilde, The Selfish Giant

October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.
– J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

But when the sun rose, it was a glorious sight. The trees and shrubs were covered with rime, and looked like a wood of coral, and every branch was thick with long white blossoms. The most delicate twigs, which are lost among the foliage in summer-time, came now into prominence, and it was like a spider’s web of glistening white.
– Hans Christian Andersen

Of winters lifeless world each tree. Now seems a perfect part; Yet each one holds summers secret. Deep down within its heart.
Charles G. Stater

A cold wind was blowing from the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things.
– George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Winter solitude–
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.
– Haiku, Matsuo Basho

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.“
– Lewis Carroll

Keeping his knife and spear close, he ventured out upon the most-frequently used game trail, watching intently for some sign, in the newly-fallen snow, of animal footprints or movement of any kind. The forest lay deep and oddly silent under its gleaming coating of ice and snow. Every creature of sense lay deep within its burrow and slept.
– Ojibway tale of the Windigo, as told by S. E. Schlosser

Winter then in its early and clear stages, was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country, alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light into the arms of bare upreaching trees. It was a mad and beautiful thing that scoured raw the souls of animals and man, driving them before it until they loved to run. And what it did to Northern forests can hardly be described, considering that it iced the branches of the sycamores on Chrystie Street and swept them back and forth until they rang like ranks of bells.
– Mark Helprin, Winter‘s Tale

There is nothing so welcome as the golden glow of warmth emanating from a window on a winter’s evening.
It speaks of fire, love, hope and hot chocolate.