A BREAK IN THE MADNESS | LOCKDOWN SNOW DAY

Sometimes, just sometimes during this pandemic, there’s a shift and just for a fleeting glance, it feels different. Just for a second, you forget there’s a world health crisis, forget you’re in lockdown, forget your troubles and actually enjoy it for a minute.

During the sunny days in spring when I was sat outside with a drink and my laptop I felt it. The heat wave in the summer on long walks with my husband I felt it. On the weekends when I’ve achieved all I set out to achieve I’ve felt it. And today was one of those days.

An unexpected snow day. The kind of distraction you didn’t know you needed. The cup of tea and mindless tv that takes your mind off things. The work that distracts you. The chores that for an afternoon occupy your brain. And today, waking up at 6am to see snow on the ground and the restless sleep that followed like a child at Christmas.

There is something different about the way the light streams through the window on a morning with snow on the ground. A stillness to the air, the perfection of a driveway not walked on yet. Tiny bird footprints tracked along pots and on top of cars. That cold that you know brought the snowflakes but surprisingly doesn’t hit you or take your breath away.

Bundled in coats, hats pulled down over your ears wet from the already melting trees. Hands in gloves and mittens, wellies crunching where nobody else has crunched yet and only the tiniest of noses exposed to the cold. The dogs exploring this new world, puddles frozen over, slushy roads and the way the sun falls on the path.

Walking, talking, stopping to take countless photos, only passing one other person. Social distancing not even a consideration, no talk of vaccines or coughs or Boris bloody Johnson. A moment in the madness that felt like real life. Pure and utter bliss.