More than frozen water
Posted: Monday, 24 November 2008 |
In the early morning monochrome, the smooth crystals of the nights snowfall sparkle on the windscreen. The street is edged in white, the bitter frost making stark edges glint in the steely grey light. Leaves rattle in the gutters, brittle and utterly frozen, the trees they came from poke their bare branches to the grey clouded skies.
Leaving the city to head back north we soon start to see thin patches of snow beside the road having been turned a dirty grey by the passing of a thousand vehicles and gritters.
The further north we travel, the slower the speed seems to get, snow encroaches the road until only one lane of the road is useable, funnelling the traffic so it slows to a crawl, unable to get past any slow vehicles ahead.
I love snow. The cold and disruption and occasionally destruction it brings are all almost part of the attraction. While it is snowing you are totally helpless. For me, it reminds me that we are a part of nature, not apart from it. We can shape this planet how we want, go to the moon, send space craft to other planets. However, small white fluffy flakes can all but cripple everything we do for as long as it falls and remains on the ground.
Snow turns the world into a black and white photograph. Black and white makes us see what we would normally miss – patterns, shapes, the form of the things we see every day. Snow obscures but in the same breath it adds so much. It takes away the detail so we can see the bigger picture.
People seem drawn to walk in snow, to feel the crunch of the flakes beneath our foot falls. To look back and see the temporary record of where we went. It almost opens our heads, to look back and see where we paused, others can somehow see inside our heads and witness our actions until either more snows come or the thaw.
Snow flakes are all individuals – unique from their neighbours. Just like people, we are all individuals in our own rights. But sometimes seen as a group, some of us are seen as a problem. The snow on your lawn and caught in the branches of your trees is just beautiful, but the snow on your driveway is a problem and needs to be dealt with. Only the last breaths of the wind influenced where those flakes came to rest, they had no say in if they were a lawn flake or a driveway flake.
Here are some photographs from our journey from Edinburgh to Aberdeen via Dundee and Fraserburgh.
Leaving the city to head back north we soon start to see thin patches of snow beside the road having been turned a dirty grey by the passing of a thousand vehicles and gritters.
The further north we travel, the slower the speed seems to get, snow encroaches the road until only one lane of the road is useable, funnelling the traffic so it slows to a crawl, unable to get past any slow vehicles ahead.
I love snow. The cold and disruption and occasionally destruction it brings are all almost part of the attraction. While it is snowing you are totally helpless. For me, it reminds me that we are a part of nature, not apart from it. We can shape this planet how we want, go to the moon, send space craft to other planets. However, small white fluffy flakes can all but cripple everything we do for as long as it falls and remains on the ground.
Snow turns the world into a black and white photograph. Black and white makes us see what we would normally miss – patterns, shapes, the form of the things we see every day. Snow obscures but in the same breath it adds so much. It takes away the detail so we can see the bigger picture.
People seem drawn to walk in snow, to feel the crunch of the flakes beneath our foot falls. To look back and see the temporary record of where we went. It almost opens our heads, to look back and see where we paused, others can somehow see inside our heads and witness our actions until either more snows come or the thaw.
Snow flakes are all individuals – unique from their neighbours. Just like people, we are all individuals in our own rights. But sometimes seen as a group, some of us are seen as a problem. The snow on your lawn and caught in the branches of your trees is just beautiful, but the snow on your driveway is a problem and needs to be dealt with. Only the last breaths of the wind influenced where those flakes came to rest, they had no say in if they were a lawn flake or a driveway flake.
Here are some photographs from our journey from Edinburgh to Aberdeen via Dundee and Fraserburgh.
Comments
HI DoaD, another delicious blog to read and to look at. We have a few cm. of snow here in the S. of Sweden, it came a few days ago and Saga went crazy, dancing about and singing Chritmas songs all the while. Also Stumpy likes the snow because all the smells are different and everything has to be re-investigated. What I think is fasinating about snow is the way its structure changes with time, because the water molecules are still capable of some movement until the temperature drops below about -120 C. So the warming/cooling cycle of day/night change the crystals; sometimes subtley, sometimes obviously. You can also see this on a shroud (boat type) in supercooled fog if the water droplets are verys small, if they are bigger you get "black ice" which is the hardest, ie. most compact ice of all. Just now the news tells us that Stockholm is in the grips of a real blizzard with attendant traffic chaos. Ugh!
Barney from Swithiod snowing too
beautiful caledonian pine there, all shrouded in snow ...! The true shape of scotland ...! I had ambitions to plant a line of them here on Lewis before I understood the problems in growing trees here ... Shame ... They'd love the acid soil, but couldn't deal with the incessant gales or lack of root-grip ...
soaplady from cold, but snow-less, so far ...!
Narnia. All that's missing is the lamp-post. And the White Witch. A red squirrel's at least as good as a Mr Tumnus!
Flying Cat from an admiring glance
We all like snow,except when we have to work in it!
Old Git from Cold Lesbury
beautiful pics are usual, DoaD! And now that you mentioned it, FC, it does look like Narnia! Strange to see a red squirrel--all of ours are grey.
thelovelyOutlander from Save IB!!!!
Brilliant photographs. Can't wait for some snow here. All rain usually but cold now and living in hope !
Irish Rover from Blessington, Republic of Ireland
DoaD, Another great post. You are so talented with word and camera. I jealous.
CVBruce from CA, USA
After coming to Orkney in May 2006 for 8 months, somehow I am still here. Running the MV Valkyrie in the summer and helping on the farm in winter is now my life. 
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