Snow is in the air
I was sitting at the drawing-desk writing the previous posting when I heard scritch-scratch, scratch-scritch.
When I hear this noise I always hear it in double-pack! I hear the actual noise and I hear it whispered in my ear in Mum’s voice.
The spoken words are a memory from Beatrix Potter’s Mr Mcgregor who, with his glasses placed on his long nose, was busy working in his garden as Peter Rabbit made a dive for safety under the gate.
I loved this story but it made my sister cry. Mum read it to us anyway and she always whispered the scritch-scratching!
As I heard the scritch-scratch for real at midday today I wondered for several minutes what it could be. A familiar sound that I could not place it at first.
It was strange that it took me so long to remember what the noise is because last night I had told a friend that there was a familiar smell in the air, I said that I thought we would wake up in the morning in Nürnberg to a white-world.
The world was not white when I woke but it is now!
The scritch-scratch was the snow shovels out on the pavements doing the first clearing before grit could be sprinkled.
It is that dirty, slushy snow that must be cleared and salted before the evening temperatures drop low enough to freeze it thus making the pavements treacherous.
With the first scritch-scratching of the winter I will now have the extra alarm clock, that is a sign for me on snowy mornings to get out of bed a bit earlier so that, despite the weather, I can get to work on time.
Out with the sledges at last!
As the children left us on Friday evening I wished them a happy and snowy weekend. They will be thrilled to be outside on their sledges. The wetness of the snow does not deter their fun.
Notes
Beatrix Potter – The Tale of Peter Rabbit
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