Monday 29 November 2010

champagne powder

High sky, land mass and sea coast create the theatre for currents of air from different directions to interact. Along the eastern coast, thunder-snow with its static charge connects sky and land. With only a weak effect of the usual Gulf Stream travelling north east across the Atlantic, the polar winds from Scandinavia have driven plumes of snow clouds westwards. Their leading edges have covered the shelter and all around it with cold crystalline snow.
No-one has been here. I followed tracks up from the road and along my usual route, but then they arched away, crossing the wall and up the fell on the open side. For now the air is still, and with the easterly polar winds predicted to blow soon, I took the chance to make a drawing.
It was unusually quiet, and free of distraction. Even with the remains of a hangover I was able to concentrate sufficiently to wonder at the silent unseen accumulation of ice and snow that had alighted on every twig.
The gill mirrored the huge forces at work in the macro-atmosphere. Snow had bent the grass and vegetation, dipping into the water and freezing columns of ice back up stalks.

I looked at the features that make up this place, and at the transformation that had taken place. I'm almost looking forward to more cold and snow in the hope that the transformation continues by completely freezing the gill and making a solid crust of ice on which I could walk on top of the snow. In my excitement and my absorption I left my stick in the shelter. Once more, there's much for me to absorb further; to synthesise my feelings with the physical material-changes that the onset of winter brings.

No comments:

Post a Comment